Edward in the Meadow
by Blueberry-Valentine
Summary: This is Twilight in EPOV starting from the meadow scene. Read and Review! Discontinued. See Version 2.
1. Chapter 13 in Twilight

**Disclaimer: **I don't own Bella or Edward or Chapter 13 – Confessions – of Twilight. The dialogue comes straight from Twilight, which Stephenie Meyer owns.

Today was, indubitably, the most incredible day of my life.

The meadow was an amazing place to spend sunny days. The sun restricted the places I could go, what with the whole sparkling thing, but the meadow was a private, beautiful area to soak up the sun. The beauty of the meadow, of course, was nothing compared to the angel sitting not a foot away from me.

If someone had told me just a few weeks ago that today I would be spending a sunny day with a human, whose blood called to me with unbearable strength, a human who knew my family's secret and still wanted to be here with me, I would never have believed them.

Warmth suddenly spread across my hand. I opened my eyes and saw that Bella was stroking the back of my hand with one finger. She was sitting, curled up with her chin on her knees, like she had been all afternoon. I was surprised that she was so close. Most people were repelled by us, their instincts telling them that we were dangerous, even if they didn't know it themselves. Bella was an exception.

She was an exception for most things. She was the one person, human or vampire, whose mind I couldn't read. She was the one person, human or vampire, who constantly took me by surprise. She was the one person, human or vampire, who I'd ever wanted to be with in a way other than as a brother or sister. She was extraordinary.

Her chocolate brown eyes flicked up to mine. I smiled.

"I don't scare you?" I asked, trying to sound casual, but some of the curiosity burning in me slipped out. Didn't Bella realize that I was a vampire, a soulless monster? That my self-control could slip and I could drain her sweet, warm, tantalizing blood from her body, ending her life? Did she even care?

"No more than usual." Bella replied. My smile grew. She was such a remarkable girl.

She uncurled her hand and moved it up my forearm, leaving a warm trail. I could hear her heart beating from where I lay and feel the blood gently pulse in her trembling fingertips. I closed my eyes, concentrating on blocking out the scent of her blood, but unable to stop enjoying the warmth that she generated.

"Do you mind?" Bella asked in a small voice.

"No. You can't imagine how that feels." I sighed contentedly as she continued to stroke my arm. I opened my eyes and watched her. She reached over with her other hand to turn over my hand. I flipped it up at a speed almost too fast for her to see. She froze and I realized that I had startled her.

"Sorry," I said quietly, closing my eyes again. "It's too easy to be myself with you."

Bella picked up my hand and examined it. She brought it closer to her face and I felt her warm breath on my palm. She seemed to be concentrating on something. I reached into her mind, seeking out a whisper of her voice. But just like the first day, her mind was absolutely silent.

"Tell me what you're thinking," I whispered. "It's still so strange for me, not knowing."

"You know, the rest of us feel that way all the time."

The rest of you are human. The rest of you have souls, futures. The rest of you are normal. Other than Bella, of course. She was far from normal.

"It's a hard life." I said regretfully. "But you didn't tell me." I reminded her.

"I _was_ wishing I could know what you were thinking…" She paused.

"And?" I prompted.

"I was wishing that I could believe that you were real. And I was wishing that I wasn't afraid." Bella said quietly.

"I don't want you to be afraid." I told her gently. I didn't want her to have to be afraid, to have a cause of fear. But with a monster sitting so close to her, she had every reason to be afraid.

"Well, that's not exactly the fear I meant, though that's certainly something to think about."

What else was she frightened of? I propped myself up on my arm and found myself a few inches away from her. Her deep brown eyes widened in shock at my vicinity. "What are you afraid of then?" I asked.

Before I knew what she was doing, Bella leaned even closer, inhaling my scent.

The monster inside me erupted. If I closed the infinitesimal space between us, I could sink my teeth into her throat. I could already imagine how it would feel, the taste more delicious than anything in the world, sliding down my throat, quenching the burning thirst I felt…

I bolted into the trees, away from the cherubic creature with alluring blood.

Her expression was a frozen mask of hurt and shock. Her empty hand hadn't moved. "I'm…sorry…Edward." Bella whispered.

She was sorry? It wasn't her fault that her blood smelled so staggeringly mouthwatering.

"Give me a moment." I called, loud enough for her to hear me. Her scent was still vivid in my mind, my mouth still filled with an excess of venom. A light wind blew, free of Bella's aroma, clearing my thoughts. After a few seconds, I was able to go back to her. I walked with exaggerated slowness, careful not to frighten her again. I lowered myself to the ground a few feet away from her, looking into her wide brown eyes. I smiled.

"I am so very sorry." I apologized, trying to think of a way to lighten the atmosphere. "Would you understand what I meant if I said I was only human?" I attempted to joke.

Bella nodded, but the smile I loved didn't come onto her face. I smelled adrenaline begin coursing through her body. My comforting smile changed to a sardonic one.

"I'm the world's best predator aren't I? Everything about me invites you in – my voice, my face, even my _smell._ As if I need any of that!" I said disgustedly. I jumped up and sprinted around the meadow, returning before she could blink. "As if you could outrun me," I laughed humorlessly. I reached up to a spruce tree and tore a two-foot-thick limb from the trunk. After effortlessly balancing it in my hand for a second, I hurled it against another large tree, which quivered from the force. I dashed back to where she was frozen. "As if you could fight me off." I said more kindly.

Bella looked more frightened than I had ever seen her. More frightened than when she was about to be crushed by Tyler's van, more frightened than when she was being stalked by those miserable excuse for humans. Her deep chocolate eyes were full of nothing other than terror. Her already pallid face seemed to have gotten paler, if that was possible. She was frozen and seemed to be barely breathing at all.

"Don't be afraid," I murmured, filled with guilt for terrifying her. "I promise…" I stopped myself, looking for a more convincing word. "I _swear_ not to hurt you. Don't be afraid." I stepped closer and sat down slowly so that I was a foot away from her.

"Please forgive me," I nearly begged. "I _can_ control myself. You caught me off guard. But I'm on my best behavior now," I waited for her to say something, anything. Just a syllable would be fine. "I'm not thirsty today, honestly." I winked.

Bella laughed softly and unsteadily.

"Are you alright?" I asked gently, placing my cold hand back in her warm one, which hadn't moved since I previously left. Bella looked down at our hands, then into my eyes. She turned her gaze down. With one finger, she traced the creases in my hand. She looked up and smiled shyly. I grinned, relieved, and a slightly dreamy look came into her eyes.

"So, where were we, before I behaved so rudely?" I asked.

"I honestly can't remember." she whispered.

I smiled ruefully. "I think we were talking about why you were afraid, besides the obvious reason."

"Oh, right." she mumbled.

"Well?" I encouraged. Bella bent her head and traced light patterns on my palm. I waited, growing impatient as the seconds ticked by. She didn't seem to have any intention of answering. I tried reaching into her mind again. Was she trying to block me? Thinking of nothing, so I heard nothing? It was so exasperating, not knowing what was going on in her head. I sighed. "How easily frustrated I am."

"I was afraid…" she began, "because, for, well, obvious reasons, I can't _stay_ with you. And I'm afraid that I'd like to stay with you, much more than I should." Bella didn't look up as she said this.

"Yes," I agreed. "That is something to be afraid of, indeed. Wanting to be with me. That's really not in your best interest," Bella frowned. I sighed. "I should have left long ago. I should leave now. But I don't know if I can." She enthralled me. Leaving now wouldn't be in my best interest. Of course, it was the best way to ensure that she stayed alive.

"I don't want you to leave." she mumbled. I felt something course through me. Happiness? I shouldn't have been happy that Bella wanted me to stay with her. That would endanger her life. But as wrong as it probably was, I realized that I was happy – no, thrilled – that Bella wanted me.

"Which is exactly why I should," Her face fell slightly. "But don't sorry," I reassured her. "I'm essentially a selfish creature. I crave your company too much to do what I should."'

This fact seemed to brighten her mood. "I'm glad." Bella said.

"Don't be!" I took my hand away, wishing I had the warmth back once it was removed. "It's not only your company I crave! Never forget _that_. Never forget I am more dangerous to you that I am to anyone else." I stopped my rant, realizing that I just prompted a conversation I never wanted to start.

"I don't think I understand exactly what you mean – by that last part anyway." Bella said after thinking for a moment.

I smiled at her. "How do I explain? And without frightening you again…hmmmm." I unthinkingly put my hand back in hers and she squeezed it, warmth enveloping my hand again. "That's amazingly pleasant, the warmth." I sighed and continued to ponder over a way to explain the way her delectable blood called to me.

"You know how everyone enjoys different flavors? Some people love chocolate ice cream, others prefer strawberry." Bella nodded eagerly. "Sorry about the food analogy – I couldn't think of another way to explain." She smiled at me and I smiled back.

"You see, every person smells different, has a different essence. If you locked an alcoholic in a room full of stale beer, he'd gladly drink it. But he could resist, if he wished to, if he were a recovering alcoholic," A recovering alcoholic. What a nice way to describe a vegetarian vampire. "Now let's say you placed in that room a glass of hundred-year old brandy, the rarest, finest cognac – and filled the room with its warm aroma – how do you think he would fare then?" She didn't respond, but instead stared into my eyes.

"Maybe that's not the right comparison. Maybe it would be too easy to turn down the brandy. Perhaps I should have made our alcoholic a heroin addict instead."

"So what you're saying is, I'm your brand of heroin?" she teased.

I grinned. "Yes, you are _exactly _my brand of heroin."

"Does that happen often?" she wondered aloud.

I looked out into the forest, trying to think of a way to word my response. "I spoke to my brothers about it. To Jasper, every one of you is much the same. He's the most recent to join our family. It's a struggle for him to abstain at all. He hasn't had time to grow sensitive to the differences in smell, in flavor," I turned to her, contrite. "Sorry." How odd it must be for her, listening to a vampire talk about the flavor of other people.

"I don't mind. Please don't worry about offending me, or frightening me, or whichever. That's the way you think. I can understand, or I can try to at least. Just explain however you can."

I was incredulous. She doesn't mind? She doesn't mind if a bloodsucking vampire describes how he's lusting for her blood? Bella will never cease to amaze me.

I took a deep breath – something not quite necessary, but habit all the same – and continued. "So Jasper wasn't sure if he'd ever come across someone who was as-" I paused, looking for a word that wouldn't frighten her. Even if she said she didn't mind, she was still human. "-_appealing_ as you are to me. Which makes me think not. Emmett has been on the wagon longer, so to speak, and he understood what I meant. He says twice, for him, once stronger than the other."

"And for you?"

"Never."

"What did Emmett do?" I tensed, my hands clenching into fists. This was not something I wanted her to ask. I looked away from her questioning face.

"I guess I know." Bella murmured.

I looked back to her. "Even the strongest of us fall off the wagon, don't we?" I whispered uncomfortably.

"What are you asking? My permission? I mean, is there no hope, then?"

"No, no! Of course there's hope!" If there was no hope I wouldn't have taken such a risk. If there was no hope for her to keep living with me in the region, my family and I would be long gone. "I mean, of course I won't…" I decided not to finish my sentence. "It's different for us. Emmett…these were strangers he happened across. It was a long time ago, and he wasn't as…practiced, as careful, as he is now." I became quiet and watched Bella closely as she thought about this.

"So if we'd met…oh, in a dark alley or something…"

My jaw clenched. "It took everything I had not to jump up in the middle of that class full of children and-" I broke off, ashamed. "When you walked past me, I could have ruined everything Carlisle has built for us, right then and there. If I hadn't been denying my thirst for the last, well," I caught myself before I told her how long I'd been alive. Finding out that the boy next to her who looked 17 was over 100 years old might be too much for her to handle. "Too many years, I wouldn't have been able to stop myself." I scowled at the forest, remembering the fear in her eyes. "You must have thought I was possessed."

"I couldn't understand why. How you could hate me so quickly…"

"To me, it was like you were some kind of demon, summoned straight from my own personal hell to ruin me…" I replayed memories to her of that fateful day, my trip to Alaska, my family's reactions, her nearly being crushed by Tyler's van, the weeks after that.

"And for all that," I concluded. "I'd have fared better if I _had _exposed us all at that first moment, than if now, here – with no witnesses and nothing to stop me – if I were to hurt you."

Bella seemed confused by this. "Why?" she asked.

"Isabella," I reached over and ruffled her hair. She seemed surprised by this casual touch. I was surprised with myself. "Bella, I couldn't live with myself if I ever hurt you. You don't know how it's tortured me. The thought of you still, white, cold… to never see you blush scarlet again, to never see that flash of intuition in your eyes when you see through my pretenses…it would be unendurable," I had already seen her like that in Alice's visions. The mere thought was painful, let alone the feeling that would crash down on me if I actually acted the way Alice saw it. "You are the most important thing to me now. The most important thing to me ever."

Bella's eyes widened when I announced this. She looked down at our hands. I waited for her to respond.

"You already know how I feel, of course," she said finally. "I'm here…which roughly translated means I would rather die than stay away from you," Bella's full lips pulled down into a frown. "I'm an idiot."

I had to laugh at that. "You _are_ an idiot." I agreed and she laughed as well.

"And so they lion fell in love with the lamb…" I murmured, feeling an odd sensation go through me as I said this. Bella's lips twitched and she ducked her head, seeming to have a similar reaction.

"What a stupid lamb." she sighed.

"What a sick, masochistic lion." I stared into the forest. The lion and the lamb. The vampire and the human. What odd and inconceivable pairings.

"Why…" Bella began, pulling me out of thought. I looked at her and smiled.

"Yes?"

"Tell me why you ran from me before."

My smile dropped. "You know why." I said darkly.

"No, I mean _exactly _what did I do wrong? I'll have to be on my guard, you see, so I better start learning what I shouldn't do. This, for example," Bella stroked the back of my hand, "seems to be alright."

My smile came back. She was worrying over something that she had no control over – how edible she smelled to a vampire. "You didn't do anything wrong, Bella. It was my fault."

"But I want to help, if I can," she insisted, "to not make this harder for you."

"Well…" I thought about this for a moment. "It was just how close you were. Most humans instinctively shy away from us, repelled by our alienness…I wasn't expecting you to come so close. And the smell of your _throat_." I stopped myself, sure that this would have upset her.

"Okay, then." Bella ducked her head. "No throat exposure."

I laughed. She was so adorable. "No, really, it was more the surprise than anything else," I placed my hand on the side of her neck. "You see? Perfectly fine," Her blood thudded in her veins and her heart fluttered erratically. Blood stained her cheeks. "The blush on your cheeks is lovely," I whispered. I took my hand out of hers and they fell into her lap. I stroked her cheek and held her lovely, warm face in my hands. Her heartbeat sped up. "Be very still." I whispered.

Slowly, keeping my eyes locked on hers, I leaned toward her. I rested my head against the base of her throat. My hands slowly moved down the sides of her neck and to her shoulders. She trembled. My head turned to the side and I pressed my ear against her heart.

"Ah." I sighed.

It was a strange sensation, having her heart a few small inches away. It sped up at first, her sweet blood pulsing at an alarming rate, tempting the red-eyed monster inside me. My throat burned with thirst and my mouth was coated with venom. Eventually though, it slowed, pulsing at a steady speed.

We both knew that at any point, her maddening aroma could overcome me and I kill her quite easily. But, as I grew accustomed to the beat of her heart, a sound never heard in my house, it became more comfortable to just sit there, listening to it.

_Tha-thump, tha-thump, tha-thump…_

After some time, I released her. "It won't be so hard again." I said, pleased with myself. Carlisle would be proud of my self-control.

"Was it very hard for you?" Bella asked.

"Not nearly as bad as I imagined it would be," Surprisingly, it was pleasant. "And you?" I asked politely.

"No, it wasn't bad…for me."

I smiled. "You know what I mean." She smiled back.

"Here," I picked up Bella's hand and placed it against my cheek. "Do you feel how warm it is?" I asked, slightly excited by this trivial fact. She seemed distracted, not really listening.

"Don't move." she whispered. I closed my eyes and became a statue.

Bella's warm fingers slowly skimmed across my cheek, trailing over my eyelid and brushing underneath my eye, leaving an invisible trail of heat. She slid her finger down my nose then, ever so lightly, traced the shape of my lips. They parted beneath her fingertips and I inhaled her unique, ever so sweet, mouthwatering scent. My head swirled.

I was a vampire and I wanted her blood. But this was not just a girl with amazingly delicious blood. This was Bella and I loved her. I, as Edward, didn't want her blood, didn't want her to die because of me – didn't want her to die at all. But I was a vampire. And as a vampire, I wanted her blood. Badly.

I opened my eyes. "I wish," I whispered, " I wish you could feel…the complexity…the confusion…I feel. That you could understand." I reached over to brush her hair across her face.

"Tell me."

"I don't think I can. I've told you, on one hand, the hunger – the thirst – that, deplorable creature that I am, I feel for you. And I think you can understand that, to an extent. Though," I pulled one corner of my lips up in an attempt at a smile, "as you are not addicted to any illegal substances, you probably can't empathize completely. But…" I reached over and touched her lips, feeling her shiver. "There are other hungers. Hungers I don't even understand, that are foreign to me."

"I may understand _that_ better than you think." Bella said.

"I'm not used to feeling so human," I dared say. Human? Me? Hah! "Is it always like this?" I asked curiously.

"For me? No, never. Never before this."

I took her delicate hands in mine. "I don't know how to be close to you," I confessed. "I don't know if I can."

Bella leaned forward and pressed her face against my chest. "This is enough." she sighed, closing her eyes. I wrapped my arms around her small frame and ducked my face in her hair. Underneath the sweet tang of her blood, I could smell strawberries. I smiled.

"You're better at this than you give yourself credit for." Bella told me. I was filled with pride.

"I have human instincts – they may be buried deep, but they're there."

She sat in my arms for a few moments, then her eyes drifted to the lowering sun and she sighed.

"You have to go." I said, masking the regret I felt at this incredible day coming to an end.

"I thought you couldn't read my mind." she said accusingly.

I grinned. "It's getting clearer."

She leaned back and I placed my hand on her shoulders. "Can I show you something?" I asked excitedly, an idea suddenly coming to me. This would be fun.

"Show me what?" Bella asked cautiously.

"I'll show you how _I_ travel in the forest." She looked at me warily. "Don't worry, you'll be very safe, and we'll get to your truck much faster." I smiled crookedly and a dreamy look came into her eyes. Her heart skipped a beat, then started up again, faster.

"Will you turn into a bat?" She asked, a hesitant expression still on her face.

I laughed, the sound booming through the meadow. "Like I haven't heard _that _one before!"

"Right, I'm sure you get that all the time." Bella said, her voice dripping with sarcasm.

"Come on, little coward, climb onto my back." She looked at me as if she fully expected me to laugh and say that I was kidding. I smiled and reached over to pick her up and sling her onto my back. Her heart thudded, surprisingly loud for such a small girl. She tightened her arms and legs around me, sending an unfamiliar, warm, tingling sensation running through my body.

"I'm a bit heavier than your average backpack." she warned, teasingly.

"Hah!" I took her hand and deeply inhaled the scent of her palm. "Easier all the time." I murmured. Then I took off through the forest.

Running was something I always enjoyed. Out of my family, I was the fastest and probably the one who relished it the most. As I sped through the woods with an angel on my back, my mind wandered.

The feeling of her fingertips tracing my lips wasn't enough for the red-eyed monster to take control. Having her lips on mine wouldn't be such a huge difference would it? It would take a great deal of self-control, but after being with her for so many hours, I had become amazingly good at restraining myself from biting her.

And I knew that, from being able to hear the thought of the humans around me, kissing a girl wasn't a scandal, as it was when I was alive. I doubted that she would dislike the idea. Judging from the way most girls reacted when I was in the room, I could guess that she would enjoy it. But Bella was different from most girls and she knew that I was a vampire. Would she really want to kiss a vampire, a monster who thirsted for her blood?

Hmm…There was only one way to find out.

"Exhilarating, isn't it?" I asked elatedly when we reached her truck. She didn't move or speak. "Bella?" I asked nervously.

"I think I need to lie down." Bella whispered breathlessly.

"Oh, sorry." I waited for her to climb down.

"I think I need some help." I chuckled and pulled her off my back, cradling her in my arms. I held her for a moment, enjoying the heat, before setting her down.

"How do you feel?" I asked worriedly.

"Dizzy, I think." She looked so confused that I nearly laughed.

"Put your head between your knees." I suggested. She ducked her head and slowly breathed in and out a few times. I had to repress a smile. I didn't know that running would have such a dramatic effect on her. After a few moments she raised her head and blinked a few times, clearing her head.

"I guess that wasn't the best idea."

"No, it was very interesting." Bella said in a very breathless voice, her face paler than usual.

I let out a laugh. "You're as white as a ghost – no, you're as white as _me_!"

"I think I should have closed my eyes." she whispered.

"Remember that next time." I advised.

"Next time!" she moaned, burying her head in her hands. I was unable to stop myself from laughing. "Show-off." she muttered, irritated.

I knelt next to her. "Open your eyes, Bella." I whispered. Bella opened her eyes. They widened, and then a dazed look came into them. "I was thinking, while I was running…" I hesitated, trying to think of a way to word my desire to kiss her.

"About not hitting the trees, I hope."

The idea of me ramming into trees was so ridiculous that I chuckled. "Silly Bella. Running is second nature to me, it's not something I have to think about."

"Show-off." she repeated. I smiled.

"No, I was thinking there was something I wanted to try." I took her beautiful, fragile face in my hands. Her pretty dark brown eyes widened. I hesitated for one moment before pressing my lips to her warm, full ones.

I wasn't anywhere close to ready for her reaction.

Bella gasped and twisted her fingers in my hair. She parted her lips and a wave of her luscious, breathtaking scent crashed into me.

The vampire part of me roared, demanding for me to sink my teeth into her, yearning to taste the blood impossibly close to my mouth. It would be easy to break her neck, relatively quick to end her life. It wouldn't be a painful death for her and I would be able to satiate the thirst exploding in the back of my mouth. I could feel her blood sliding down my throat already. It was like the first day I met her all over again.

I froze as the rational part of me screamed refusal to this act. Bella. My Bella, with her wide, innocent eyes, long, dark hair, full, red lips, incredible personality. I couldn't kill her – wouldn't kill her, wouldn't let the monster I had been trying to repress all day be the end of her. Her death would not be in my hands.

I pushed her face back.

"Oops." she whispered, the smell of her breath making my head swirl.

"That's an understatement." The understatement of the century, of the millennium.

"Should I…?" She tried to pull away, but I held her in place. If I was going to spend any more time with her, I would need to control myself.

"No, it's tolerable. Wait for a moment, please." I said politely.

She watched me as I grew more comfortable with her proximity and the red-eyed monster sank further away. Now that I was in control and Bella's life wasn't on the edge, I could afford to remember how her lips felt on mine. I grinned.

"There."

"Tolerable?" she asked.

I laughed. "I'm stronger than I thought. It's nice to know."

She looked crestfallen. "I wish I could say the same. I'm sorry."

"You _are _only human, after all."

"Thanks so much." she said bitterly.

I stood up and offered my hand to her. She seemed slightly surprised by this, but reached out and I pulled her up. She wobbled slightly and put most of her weight on my hand.

"Are you still faint from the run? Or was it was kissing expertise?" I asked, feeling happier than I had been for a while.

"I can't be sure, I'm still woozy. I think it's some of both, though." Bella smiled.

"Maybe you should let me drive." I suggested.

Her forehead creased. "Are you insane?" she objected.

"I can drive better than you on your best day," I teased. "You have much slower reflexes."

"I'm sure that's true, but I don't think my nerves, or my truck, could take it." she teased back.

"Some trust, please, Bella." She pursed her lips as she thought about this, then shook her head with a thin smile.

"Nope. Not a chance." I raised my eyebrows. Was she serious? She started walking to her truck when she wobbled. There was no way I was letting her drive when she couldn't stand up properly. I snaked my arm around her waist.

"Bella," I sighed. "I've already expended a great deal of personal effort at this point to keep you alive. I'm not about to let you behind the wheel of a vehicle when you can't even walk straight. Besides, friends don't let friends drive drunk." I chuckled as I remembered this quote.

"Drunk?" she protested.

I grinned. "You're intoxicated by my very presence."

"I can't argue with that," Bella admitted. She held her key in the air then dropped it. I reached swiftly out to catch it. "Take it easy – my truck is a senior citizen."

"Very sensible." I noted.

"And are you not affected at all? By my presence?" she asked, sounding annoyed.

I bent my face to hers and trailed my lips across her jaw. She shivered.

"Regardless," I eventually whispered. "I have better reflexes."

**Author's Note**:Well, there you go! I know, it was super long – I'm amazed if you actually got this far. So, did you love it? Hate it? Want more? Just press that little purplish-bluish button and review to let me know!


	2. Chapter 14 in Twilight

**Author's Note: **Thank you if you reviewed! Reviews make me very happy. :-D

**Disclaimer: **I don't own Edward or Bella or Charlie or the dialogue from Chapter 14 – Mind over Matter – of Twilight, much to my sadness.

Driving wasn't too bad when you went fast. It was really quite easy – I still couldn't see how so many humans were reckless and clumsy enough to get in as many accidents as they do. It was also a good time to listen to music. My car was well stocked with CDs and there were always the oldies stations on the radio.

Right now I was singing along to Whispering Bells by The Del-Vikings as I held Bella's hand. This song would probably be one of my favorites from now on. It had been a long time since I felt so happy.

"You like fifties music?" Bella asked, surprised.

"Music in the fifties was good. Much better than the sixties, or the seventies, ugh!" I still couldn't believe that anyone liked those songs. "The eighties were bearable."

"Are you ever going to tell me how old you are?" She seemed hesitant in asking me. Why was she asking if she didn't want to know?

"Does it matter much?" This answer seemed to satisfy her – she relaxed.

"No, but I still wonder…There's nothing like an unsolved mystery to keep you up at night." She couldn't be staying up that late wondering about it – I should know. I was always there watching her sleep.

"I wonder if it will upset you." I said, mostly to myself, as I gazed at the sunset.

"Try me."

I sighed and looked at her, trying to gauge if she was ready to know and not run away screaming. This reaction, of course, would be acceptable and I would, of course, let her go. Her wide dark eyes looked back at me, open and accepting. I looked back at the sun.

"I was born in Chicago in 1901," I began. I glanced at Bella, not turning my head. She didn't seem horrified by this. She waited for me to continue. I let a small smile onto my face. "Carlisle found me in a hospital in the summer of 1918. I was seventeen, and dying of the Spanish influenza."

Bella gasped quietly and I looked back at her. Her eyes weren't filled with disgust or fright, but instead she seemed sad. "I don't remember it well – it was a very long time ago, and human memories fade." I briefly attempted to remember life before being a vampire and was met by a haze of jumbled thoughts. I remembered my mother and father – you couldn't forget your parents – and slightly what my house was like, but events that probably seemed important back then were now lost in the murky stream of memories. "I do remember how it felt, when Carlisle saved me. It's not an easy thing, not something you could forget." When you went through that amount of agony you were sure to remember it.

"Your parents?" she asked.

"They had already died from the disease. I was alone. That was why he chose me. In all the chaos of the epidemic, no one would ever realize I was gone."

"How did he…save you?"

This was definitely not a question I was prepared to answer. There had to be a way to answer it without…answering it completely. "It was difficult," I began. "Not many of us have the restraint necessary to accomplish it. But Carlisle has always been the most humane, the most compassionate of us…I don't think you could find his equal throughout all of history." I hesitated before continuing. "For me, it was merely very, very painful."

Bella said nothing else, but I could easily see that she was exploding with curiosity. I hoped that she realized that this act wasn't from selfishness. He was the only vampire with the same eating habits that he knew of. I couldn't imagine what it would have been like to be so alone.

"He acted from loneliness," I continued. "That's usually the reason behind the choice. I was the first in Carlisle's family, though he found Esme soon after. She fell from a cliff," Or jumped. Really the end result was the same. "They brought her straight to the hospital morgue, though, somehow, her heart was still beating."

"So you must be dying, then, to become…" I noticed her reluctance in saying the word for the deplorable creature that I was. Vampire.

"No, that's just Carlisle. He would never do that to someone who had a choice. It is easier he says, though, if the blood is weak." I turned my eyes back to road, not believing that I had said so much on the topic.

"And Emmett and Rosalie?" she pressed.

"Carlisle brought Rosalie to our family next. I didn't realize till much later that he was hoping she would be to me what Esme was to him," I couldn't help but roll my eyes. The thought of being Rosalie's husband was just silly. "But she was never more than a sister.

"It was only two years later that she found Emmett. She was hunting – we were in Appalachia at the time – and found a bear about to finish him off. She carried him back to Carlisle, more than a hundred miles, afraid that she wouldn't be able to do it herself," I knew that part of the reason the was afraid of slipping up was that she didn't want to lose him, but the less obvious part was that she was worried about marring her spotless record, something that she was arrogant about. "I'm only beginning to guess how difficult that journey was for her." This was a fact I was constantly amazed by – that Rosalie carried a half-dead and bleeding Emmett for over a hundred miles without taking a single sip.

I gazed down at our entwined fingers and raised them, grazing her cheek with the back of my hand.

"But she made it." Bella pointed out.

"Yes," I whispered. "She saw something in his face that made her strong enough. And they've been together ever since. Sometimes they live separately from us, as a married couple. But the younger we pretend to be, the longer we can stay in any given place. Forks seemed perfect, so we all enrolled in high school," I laughed. "I suppose we'll have to go to their wedding in a few years, _again._"

"Alice and Jasper?" she questioned.

"Alice and Jasper are two very rare creatures. They both developed a conscience, as we refer to it, with no outside guidance. Jasper belonged to another…" I tried to think of a word for the army my brother had been part of, "family, a _very _different kind of family," A family of vampires only taught to kill. "He became depressed, and he wandered on his own. Alice found him. Like me, she has certain gifts above and beyond the norm for our kind."

"Really?" Bella exclaimed, fascinated. "But you said you were the only one who could hear people's thoughts."

"That's true. She knows other things. She _sees_ things – things that might happen, things that are coming. But it's very subjective. The future isn't set in stone. Things change." I clenched my jaw and my eyes flashed to Bella's face and back. Alice saw me kill Bella, her dead, the blood drained from her, which didn't happen. Alice also saw her as a vampire. If I had anything to say about it, that wouldn't happen either.

"What kinds of things does she see?"

"She saw Jasper and knew that he was looking for her before he knew it himself. She saw Carlisle and our family, and they came together to find us. She's most sensitive to non-humans. She always sees, for example, when another group of our kind is coming near. And any threat they may pose."

"Are there a lot of…your kind?" I noticed that, once again, she refrained from saying the word.

"No, not many. But most won't settle in any one place. Only those like us, who've given up hunting you people, can live together with humans for any length of time. We've only found one other family like ours, in a small village in Alaska. We lived together for a time, but there were so many of us that we became too noticeable," I was glad to leave. The people living in Denali were nice enough, but being in the same house as Tanya after I turned her down had been growing uncomfortable. "Those of us who live…differently tend together."

"And the others?"

"Nomads, for the most part. We've all lived that way at times."

My time alone was horrible. For the first few months I had myself deluded that by only killing people with less than innocent motivations made me less of a monster. Once I realized that murdering humans, even if their minds were so twisted, you couldn't really call them humans, made me more of a monster than if I went back to Carlisle's way.

"It gets tedious," I continued, "like anything else. But we run across others now and then, because most of us prefer the North."

"Why is this?" Bella asked as I parked in front of her empty house.

I smiled. "Did you have your eyes open this afternoon?" I teased her. "Do you think I could walk down the street in the sunlight without causing traffic accidents? There's a reason why we chose the Olympic Peninsula, one of the most sunless places in the world. It's nice to be able to go outside in the day. You wouldn't believe how tired you can get of nighttime in eighty-odd years."

"So that's where the legends came from?"

"Probably."

"And Alice came from another family, like Jasper?"

"No, and that _is _a mystery. Alice doesn't remember her human life at all. And she doesn't know who created her. She awoke alone. Whoever made her walked away, and none of us understand why, or how, he could. If she hadn't had that other sense, if she hadn't seen Jasper and Carlisle and known that she would someday become one of us, she probably would have turned into a total savage." We sat in silence for a moment, absorbing everything that had been said. Bella's stomach rumbled and she blushed.

"I'm sorry, I'm keeping you from dinner." I apologized.

"I'm fine, really." Bella insisted. No she wasn't – she hadn't eaten since breakfast.

"I've never spent much time around anyone who eats food. I forget."

"I want to stay with you." she admitted. She wasn't the only one.

"Can't I come in?" I wondered aloud.

"Would you like to?" she asked, sounding surprised.

"Yes, if it's alright." I got out of the car and opened her door for her in the same second.

"Very human." she noted.

Pride rose in me. "It's definitely resurfacing."

I walked next to her and I saw her sneaking peeks at me from the corner of her eye. I reached the door first and unlocked and opened it for her. While walking in, she froze.

"The door was unlocked?" Bella asked, startled.

"No, I used the key from under the eave," She turned on the porch light and faced me with her eyebrows raised. "I was curious about you." I confessed.

"You spied on me?" She was trying to sound outraged, but she failed miserably and delightedness colored her voice.

"What else is there to do at night?" All my family members had…things to do at night. I spent most nights hunting, finding it horribly uncomfortable to be in the same house. It was nice to have a place to go.

I sat down at the kitchen table as Bella made herself dinner.

I wondered if Bella would allow me in her room now that she knew I was there. It wasn't something most people were comfortable with, having a member of the opposite gender in their room at night. I usually sat on the rocking chair or window sill, but her bed looked awfully comfortable…

"How often?" Bella asked, pulling me back to the kitchen.

"Hmmm?"

"How often did you come here?" she repeated, still facing the counter.

"I come here almost every night."

Bella whipped around. "Why?" she exclaimed.

"You're interesting when you sleep. You talk." Someone must've told her this by now.

"No!" Bella gasped, her entire face turning red. She leaned on the counter, looking as if she were about to faint.

"Are you very angry with me?" I asked, instantly penitent.

"Thank depends!" she exclaimed breathlessly.

I waited for her to continue. "On?" I prompted.

"What you heard!" she cried, looking as if she were about to die.

I dashed to her side and took her hands. "Don't be upset!" I begged, staring into her eyes. She tried to look away.

"You miss your mother," I murmured. "You worry about her. And when it rains, the sound makes you restless. You used to talk about home a lot, but it's less often now. Once you said, 'It's too _green.__'"_ I laughed quietly, hoping not to embarrass her further.

"Anything else?" she demanded.

I knew what she meant, but was reluctant to answer. "You did say my name." I confessed.

Bella sighed. "A lot?" she asked, not really seeming to want to know the answer.

"How much do you mean by 'a lot,' exactly?" I tried to sidestep the question.

"Oh no!" She dropped her head to her chest embarrassedly.

I pulled her closer and whispered in her ear, "Don't be self-conscious. If I could dream at all, it would be about you. And I'm not ashamed of it." I talked about her enough to Emmett. He was getting annoyed with me.

I heard Charlie's police cruiser drive up to the house and the headlights brightened the room we were standing in. Bella froze in my arms. "Should your father know I'm here?" I asked, already guessing the answer.

"I'm not sure…"

"Another time then…" I decided. I swept up the stairs, leaving her stunned at my sudden disappearance.

"Edward!" she hissed angrily. I laughed quietly before disappearing into her room.

Bella's room was nice. Even though the floor was littered with clothes, books and other miscellaneous items, it was a pleasant change from my always perfect house – other than when my brothers and I wrestled, crashing into, and breaking, furniture.

I was about to sit in the rocking chair when I stopped and looked at the bed. It looked very welcoming. The quilt and pillows looked very soft. I stepped closer to it. If Bella didn't want me in her bed, she could just shoo me away. I lay down on the bed, my feet dangling off the edge. It was saturated with her scent. Since she wasn't actually there, her blood tempting me, I was able to enjoy the smell. It was really very nice. Floral, maybe. I turned my head to the side, pressing the side of my nose against the pillow, and inhaled. Ahh…

"None of the boys in town your type, eh?" Charlie asked from downstairs, interrupting my relaxing. Boys? When did they get on that topic? I had been listening, but the whole conversation was just background noise.

"No, none of the boys in town have caught my eye yet." Bella replied, sounding uncomfortable with the question. Probably because she just got back from a date with one that was now sitting in her room. I didn't understand why she was lying to her father about it. For what seemed like the thousandth time, I wished that I could hear what was going on in her constantly silent head.

"I thought maybe that Mike Newton…you said he was friendly." _Mike Newton_. He was a bit more than friendly – unless having a burning desire to kiss your friends was a new thing that I was unaware of. An odd sensation ran through me. It was the same feeling that crashed into me when he asked her to the dance. Jealousy.

Bella sighed. "He's _just _a friend, Dad." she said exasperatedly. The jealousy faded, but was not completely gone. It was illogical and ridiculous, but I was _jealous_ of Mike Newton. "Well, you're too good for them all, anyway," That I agreed with. "Wait till you get to college to start looking."

"Sounds like a good idea to me." she said, heading up the stairs.

"'Night, honey." he called.

"See you in the morning, Dad." Bella exaggerated her steps, making them sound slow, I guessed. She slammed the door as she came into the room then hurried to the window. She opened it and leaned outside, looking for something. I couldn't figure out what she was doing until she whispered, "Edward?"

"Yes?" I whispered laughingly.

Bella spun around wide-eyed, one hand at her throat. I grinned. "Oh!" she breathed, sinking to the ground.

"I'm sorry." I apologized, trying to hide my laughter.

"Just give me a minute to restart my heart." I sat up and reached out slowly to pick her up by the tops of her arms. I set her down next to me.

"Why don't you sit with me," I suggested, unnecessarily, as she was already next to me. I placed my hand over hers, welcoming the warmth. Over the day I had begun to crave it more than I probably should. "How's the heart?" I asked.

"You tell me – I'm sure you hear it better than I do." I chuckled. We sat in silence, listening to her heart slow.

"Can I have a minute to be human?" Bella asked.

"Certainly." I waved her away with one hand.

"Stay." she commanded sternly.

"Yes ma'am." I dramatically froze on the edge of the bed. She grabbed her pajamas and a bag before slipping out of the room and slamming the bathroom door behind her. She had been slamming doors a lot lately. I wondered why and again was annoyed by the fact that I couldn't read her mind.

After a while the shower turned on. I made it a point not to think about the fact that Bella was showering just a room away… There were other things to think about. Like…school…or books…or Charlie…or sports. Charlie was watching a game downstairs. I could watch it through his thoughts.

Hmm…throw the ball, catch the ball, run with the ball, fumble the ball, trip over the ball, fall on top of the ball, get tackled and crushed by multiple people...Gah, this was boring. I hummed Debussy in my head. Won't think about Bella, won't think about Bella, won't think about-

"'Night, Dad." Bella said from downstairs.

"'Night, Bella." Charlie said, somewhat startled. Bella went up the stairs quickly and into her room, shutting the door behind her. She smiled and my lips twitched. I looked over her pajamas – grey sweatpants and an old shirt – and raised one eyebrow. "Nice," She grimaced. "No, it looks good on you." I reassured her.

"Thanks." Bella whispered, sitting next to me with her legs crossed.

"What was all that for?" I asked, curious about the slamming doors and racing up and down the stairs.

"Charlie thinks I'm sneaking out." she explained.

"Oh," I thought about this for a moment, going into Charlie's mind. _Run! Run faster! Sh- _He was much too distracted by the game to care at the moment. "Why?" I asked.

"Apparently, I look a little overexcited."

Overexcited was better than overly nervous. Of course, overly nervous was safer than overexcited. I lifted her chin, examining her face. "You look very warm, actually." I noted, leaning over to press my cheek against her face. Yes, the warmth was very soothing. "Mmmmmm…" I sighed.

"It seems to be…much easier for you, now, to be close to me." Bella seemed to have trouble getting this sentence out. I couldn't fathom why.

"Does it seem that way to you?" I mumbled, my nose moving to the side of her face. I lightly brushed her hair away from her ear and pressed my lips below it. The smell, the heat, it was all surprisingly relaxing.

"Much, much easier." she said breathlessly.

"Hmm."

"So I was wondering…" As I traced her collarbone, she trailed off.

"Yes?"

"Why is that do you think?" Her voice trembled and I laughed quietly.

"Mind over matter." I stated simply.

She withdrew and I froze, not breathing. We stared at each other hesitantly for a moment before I became confused.

"Did I do something wrong?" I asked.

"No – just the opposite. You're driving me crazy." Bella clarified.

I thought about this for a moment before smiling delightedly. "Really?"

"Would you like a round of applause?" she asked sarcastically. My smile widened.

"I'm just pleasantly surprised," I explained. "In the last hundred years or so, I never imagined anything like this. I didn't believe I would ever find someone I wanted to be with…in another way than my brothers and sisters. And then to find, even though it's all new to me, that I'm good at it…at being with you…"

"You're good at everything." Bella noted. I shrugged, allowing that to pass without disagreement, and we laughed quietly.

"But how can it be so easy now?" she wanted to know. "This afternoon…" She trailed off.

"It's not _easy_," I sighed. Being her would never be easy. "But this afternoon, I was still…undecided. I am sorry about that, it was unforgivable for me to behave so."

"Not unforgivable." Bella corrected.

"Thank you," I smiled gratefully and looked down. "You see, I wasn't sure if I was strong enough…" I pressed one of her warm hands to my face. "And while there was still that possibility that I might be…overcome, I was…susceptible. Until I made up my mind that I _was_ strong enough, that there was no possibility at all that I would…that I ever could…" I struggled with words to explain it.

"So there's no possibility now?"

"Mind over matter." I stated again, grinning.

"Wow that was easy."

I threw my head back and laughed. "Easy for _you_! I corrected, touching her nose. I dropped my smile. "I'm trying," I whispered, my voice strained. "If it gets to be…too much, I'm fairly sure I'll be able to leave," Bella scowled. "And it will be harder tomorrow. I've had the scent of you in my head all day, and I've grown amazingly desensitized. If I'm away from you for any length of time, I'll have to start over again. Not quite from scratch, though, I think."

"Don't go away, then." she suggested.

"That suits me," I smiled. "Bring on the shackles – I'm your prisoner." I wrapped my hands around Bella's wrists and laughed.

"You seem more…optimistic than usual," she observed. "I haven't seen you like this before."

I was exponentially more optimistic than before. And it was all because of the angel whose bed I was sitting on. "Isn't it supposed to be like this?" I grinned. "The glory of first love, and all that. It's incredible isn't it, the difference between reading about something, seeing it in the pictures," Or hearing it in people's thoughts, for me, "and experiencing it."

"Very different," she agreed. "More forceful than I'd imagined."

"For example," I continued, speaking more quickly than usual, to get out the words that were coming swiftly to me, "the emotion of jealousy. I've read about it a hundred thousand times, seen actors portray it in a thousand different plays and movies. I believed I understood that one pretty clearly. But it shocked me…" I winced. "Do you remember the day that Mike asked you to the dance?"

Bella nodded. "The day you started talking to me again." she added.

"I was surprised by the flare of resentment, almost fury, that I felt – I didn't recognize it at first. I was even more aggravated than usual that I couldn't know what you were thinking, why you refused him…" I continued to explain the reasoning for coming to her house that night and what happened once I got there. "…And I knew I couldn't ignore you any longer." I concluded.

"But jealousy…it's a strange thing. So much more powerful than I would have thought. And irrational! Just now, when Charlie asked you about that vile Mike Newton…" I shook my head crossly.

"I should've known you'd be listening." Bella moaned.

"Of course." I said matter-of-factly.

"_That_ made you jealous, though, really?" she asked incredulously.

"I'm new at this," I explained. "You're resurrecting the human in me, and everything feels stronger because it's fresh."

"But honestly, for that to bother you, after I have to hear that Rosalie – Rosalie, the incarnation of pure beauty, _Rosalie_," I hid a smile. It was rather funny to hear her described that way, "was meant for you. Emmett or no Emmett, how can I compete with that?"

"There's no competition," I said truthfully. I pulled her hands around my back and hugged her small frame close to me.

"I _know_ there's no competition. That's the problem."

"Of course Rosalie _is _beautiful in her way, but even if she wasn't like a sister to me, even if Emmett didn't belong with her, she could never have on tenth, no one hundredth," I corrected myself, "of the attraction you hold for me," Her deep, brown, open eyes, her inviting warmth, the sound of her heartbeat – everything about her drew me in, completed me. "For almost ninety years I've walked among my kind, and yours…all the time thinking I was complete in myself, not realizing what I was seeking. And not finding anything, because you weren't alive yet."

"It hardly seems fair," she commented in a whisper. "I haven't had to wait at all. Why should I get off so easily?"

"You're right. I should make this harder for you, definitely." I stroked her wet hair with one hand. "You only have to risk your life every second you spend with me, that's surely not much. You only have to turn your back on nature, on humanity..." I pointed out, "What's that worth?"

"Very little – I don't feel deprived of anything."

"Not yet." I said sadly, reality crashing into me. Right now, as we had only spent a few short days with each other, she was content with light kisses, brief hugs, casual touches…But I knew how the human mind worked and as time went on, she would want things that I, as a vampire, couldn't give her.

"What –" Bella broke off as I froze. Charlie! It wouldn't be very pleasant to try to explain what I was doing in his daughter's bed at night.

"Lie down!" I hissed, sliding off her bed. She curled into a ball on her side, her quilt over her. Charlie opened the door hesitantly. He was already imagining the sight of her empty bed and the window open. I smiled as his expression shifted from an angry one to a disbelieving stare. Bella breathed in deeply and exhaled just as loud, feigning sleep, I imagined. I was amazed that it fooled Charlie. He watched his daughter lovingly for a few more moments before slipping out, closing the door quietly.

I slid back into Bella's bed, slipping under the covers before I realized what I was doing. "You are a terrible actress," I said, my arm around her. "I'd say that career path is out for you."

"Darn it." she whispered, her heartbeat astoundingly loud. I hummed a song – Esme's favorite – hoping that it would soothe her.

I paused. "Should I sing you to sleep?" I offered.

"Right," she said dubiously. "Like I could sleep with you here!"

"You do it all the time." I reminded her. It was something I enjoyed watching.

"But I didn't _know_ you were here." she said coldly. I couldn't argue with that.

"So if you don't want to sleep…" I trailed off.

"If I don't want to sleep…?" she prompted.

I laughed quietly. "What do you want to do then?"

Bella thought about this for a while. "I'm not sure." she said eventually.

"Tell me when you decide." I slid my nose along her jaw, breathing in her fragrance.

"I thought you were desensitized." Bella wondered out loud.

"Just because I'm resisting the wine doesn't mean I can't appreciate the bouquet," I whispered against her skin, inhaling. "You have a very floral smell, like lavender…or freesia," I tried to explain in a way that didn't compare her to food. "It's mouthwatering."

"Yeah, it's an off day when I don't get _somebody_ telling me how edible I smell."

I chuckled. This was something so like her to say. I sighed. "I've decided what I want to do," Bella informed me. "I want to hear more about you."

"Ask me anything." I invited.

She thought about this for a moment. "Why do you do it?" she asked. "I still don't understand how you can work so hard to resist what you…_are_. Please don't misunderstand, of course I'm glad that you do. I just don't see why you would bother in the first place."

Wow. I couldn't think of a single seventeen-year-old girl who thought the same way Bella did. I imagined that if any other human teenager knew that I was a vampire, they would be fleeing from me as fast as their slow legs could carry them, not wondering about the reasoning behind my diet.

"That's a good question, and you are not the first one to ask it. The others – the majority of our kind who are quite content with our lot – they, too, wonder at how we live. But you see, just because we've been..." Damned to a soulless life, "dealt a certain hand," I said instead, "it doesn't mean that we can't choose to rise above – to conquer the boundaries of a destiny that none of us wanted. To try to retain whatever essence of humanity that we can."

She lay silent and still. "Did you fall asleep?" I asked after a few minutes.

"No." she whispered.

"Is that all you were curious about?"

"Not quite." I answered her questions about my family's special gifts and evolution.

"…Or, if you don't believe that all this world could have happened on its own, which is hard for me to accept myself, is it so hard to believe that the same force that created the delicate angelfish with the shark, the baby seal and the killer whale, could create both our kinds together?" I concluded.

"Let me get this straight – I'm the baby seal, right?" she said, a bit of annoyance ringing in her voice.

"Right." I chuckled and pressed my lips to her hair. "Are you ready to sleep?" I asked after a moment. "Or do you have any more questions?"

"Only a million or two."

I smiled. Of course. "We have tomorrow, and the next day, and the next…" I told her and she smiled.

A small voice in the back of my head reminded me that as a human, Bella's days were limited. Sure we had tomorrow, and the next day, and the one after that, but what about the one in a few decades? She was just a human and could only live so long. And she was just so delicate, so breakable. She'd already narrowly escaped death twice and I was the one to save her both times. Bella was such a magnet for danger, for trouble, and there was no way I could be with her every second of the day, even if I wanted to. During one of those seconds when we were parted, death was bound to sneak up on her and snatch her away from me.

The euphoria of the night suppressed these dark thoughts and I snapped my attention back to her. "Are you sure you won't vanish in the morning? You are mythical, after all."

"I won't leave you." I promised.

"One more, then, tonight…" She trailed off, blushing, a sudden burst of heat flowing through her body, so close to mine.

"What is it?" I pressed.

"No, forget it. I changed my mind."

"Bella, you can ask me anything," I reminded her. She was silent and I groaned. "I keep thinking it will get less frustrating, not hearing our thoughts. But it just gets worse and _worse_."

"I'm glad you can't read my thoughts. It's bad enough that you eavesdrop on my sleep-talking."

A thought came to me. I remembered the way I was able to persuade people, women mainly, to do things my way, dazzling people, as Bella called it. I made my voice silky and persuasive as I pleaded, "Please?" She shook her head stubbornly. "If you don't tell me, I'll just assume it's something much worse than it is," I warned. "Please?" I tried again with the dazzling thing.

It was really quite absurd, the idea of me _dazzling_ the answer out of her, I was surprised when she began, "Well…"

"Yes?" I asked, excited and surprised that this had worked.

"You said that Rosalie and Emmett will get married soon…Is that…marriage…the same as it is for humans?" she inquired.

I laughed, understanding what she was asking about. _Marriage_. "Is _that_ what you're getting at?" She shifted uncomfortably. "Yes, I suppose it is much the same," I said, smiling. "I told you, most of those human desires are there, just hidden behind more powerful desires." Like drinking blood.

"Oh."

"Was there a purpose behind your curiosity?" I questioned.

"Well, I did wonder…about you and me…someday…" she admitted in a whisper.

I stiffened, my previous joking manner gone. Bella froze next to me in response.

Bella as my wife…It was an appealing idea. She was someone I enjoyed spending time with, someone I really loved as more than a sister. But marrying a human? Someone who's blood called to me with such force? Someone so breakable, with such a short life span? There were more problems there than I could count.

"I don't think that…that would be possible for us." I answered quietly.

"Because it would be too hard for you, if I were that…close?" she wondered aloud.

"That's certainly a problem. But that's not what I was thinking of," I murmured. "It's just that you are so soft, so fragile. I have to mind my actions every moment that we're together so that I don't hurt you. I could kill you quite easily, Bella, simply by accident." I pressed my palm against her cheek, the blush fading. "If I was too hasty…if for one second I wasn't paying enough attention, I could reach out, meaning to touch your face, and crush you skull by mistake," I suppressed a shudder at this thought. "You don't realize how _breakable_ you are. I can never, never afford to lose any kind of control when I'm with you."

I waited for her to answer. When her silence dragged on, I asked worriedly, "Are you scared?" Had I frightened her with this admittance?

Bella hesitated for a moment, thinking about her answer. "No. I'm fine." she told me.

A question popped into my head. I thought for a moment before asking it, not sure if it would be too invasive. She had told me that she hadn't had any previous boyfriends, but… "I'm curious now, though. Have _you _ever…? I trailed of suggestively.

"Of course not," Heat flooded her face. "I told you I've never felt like this about anyone before, not even close."

"I know. It's just that I know other people's thoughts. I know love and lust don't always keep the same company."

"They do for me. Now, anyway, that they exist for me at all." Bella sighed.

"That's nice," I smiled. "We have that one thing in common, at least."

"Your human instincts," she began, then hesitated. "Well, do you find me attractive, in _that _way, at all?"

I laughed and ruffled her hair. Yes. Definitely. I couldn't believe she hadn't noticed by now how beautiful she was. "I may not be human, but I am a man," I reassured her. She tried to stifle her yawn, but completely failed. "I've answered your questions, now you should sleep."

"I'm not sure if I can."

"Do you want me to leave?" I didn't want her suffering from sleep deprivation.

"No!" she exclaimed, raising her voice more than necessary.

I laughed and began humming Esme's song quietly in her ear. She wriggled deeper into her bed and closed her beautiful eyes. I watched as her breathing evened out and she drifted into sleep. I lay next to her warm body for hours, smiling euphorically as my angel whispered, "Edward, I love you…"

**Author's Note: **Tah-dah! Sorry I haven't updated for over a week. I'll do my best to write a chapter a week. I'm definitely encouraged when I have happy emails in my Inbox alerting me to new reviews. So if you want me working faster, just press that little button down there and review!


	3. Chapter 15 in Twilight Part One

**Author's Note: **Okay. I'm sorry. I know, I know, I haven't updated in forever. I will try to update more often, but life – meaning school and friends and family and writer's block – hinder my progress.

Anyways, thank you for the reviews!! As a new writer for Fan Fiction, just one review makes me scream and jump up and down in circles, and getting more than one is extremely ecstatic-making. Also, thanks to the people who gave constructive criticism. Cookies for everyone!

**Disclaimer**: I don't own Edward or Bella or the Cullen family or Chapter 15 – The Cullens – from Twilight. The dialogue comes straight from the book, which I'm overly obsessed with, as my friends constantly tell me.

Bella was wonderful to watch sleep. It wasn't just the sleep talking which was adorable, but also the way her mahogany hair spread out on her pillow, the way she slept with her knees slightly tucked in, the sound of her constant breathing and the rhythm of her heartbeat.

It was amazing, the way her scent was so familiar now, after spending all day with her. It was ingrained in my memory and filled my nose and throat, yet didn't cause me as much discomfort as it used to. I supposed that it was partly because of the revelation I had made a few days ago. That I loved her.

I was sure that in time, the decision of letting myself fall in love with a human would backfire on me. But it really wasn't completely my fault. She shouldn't be allowed to be so utterly amazing.

When the glowing numbers on her alarm clock reached four o'clock, I reluctantly climbed out of her window, shutting it tightly behind me, and started running through the forest. I didn't want to leave her, but I would have to change my clothes if I wanted to look presentable.

I reached my house after a few minutes, tuning out my family's thoughts as I walked in, not wanting them to dampen my mood. I knew that Esme was ecstatic that I found Bella, and Alice was already beginning to think of her as a sister, but the rest of my family was more…difficult. Carlisle respected my decision and just wanted me to do what I thought was right, but I sometimes heard him worrying about my self-control. Jasper accepted that fact that I loved her to some degree and he didn't want to upset Alice by rejecting her completely, but my spending so much time with her was completely against his better judgment. Emmett was incredulous for the most part and as he knew how hard it was to refrain from biting someone with such delectable blood, thought I was insane. He didn't have anything against Bella, though, and was trying to talk Rosalie, who was the most opposed to the idea, into accepting her.

Rosalie was entirely against Bella. She was angry that she knew so much about our family, even though it was clearly against the law, and the fact that no one else cared as much about that. Though she wouldn't admit it openly, I knew that she was seething with jealousy as well from Bella being a human and my loving her. Even though Rosalie had Emmett, she was still bothered by my first reaction to her and my way of thinking of her as no more than a sister.

I climbed the stairs and changed into new clothes in a few seconds, eager to get back to Bella. I ran back downstairs and was about to leave when I heard Esme.

_Hello Edward. _She smiled from where she sat on the couch and patted the seat next to her.

I smiled back and sat next to her. "Hello, Esme." I greeted her.

She chuckled. _You're certainly in a good mood._ My smile grew. Of course I was in a good mood. I just spent the day with an angel. _I've missed your smile._ I looked down. I hadn't been smiling very often, but instead spent all day in my room, moping.

"Bella's amazing," I told her. "I spent the day at my meadow with her."

Esme's eyebrows rose. _It was sunny today. _I nodded and her eyebrows rose higher. _How did she react? _

I thought back to that afternoon and realized that she hadn't said anything. No, 'Hey, um, you're sparkling.' No running, no screaming. "She gaped," I said simply, smiling as Esme laughed. "She takes everything so calmly. It makes me wonder if she doesn't really understand what I am. She says…" I paused. "She says it doesn't _matter_" I shook my head incredulously.

_Maybe __it really doesn't matter to her_Esme suggested. _From what you've told me, she sounds pretty incredible._

"She _is_ incredible. But how can she just not carethat a _vampire_ is in her bed?"

_In her bed? _She smiled, raising one eyebrow. Wow, that sounded bad. If I could've blushed, I would've.

"And her rocking chair." I added embarrassedly, trying to save my sentence and failing. "I'm going to bring her over today." I told her, changing the subject.

_I knew it__ Emmett will me mad that he lost. _Esme chuckled.

I shook my head. "I really don't know why he bet against Alice. Anyway, I'll bring her over once she's done breakfast – that is, if she wants to come."

_She will. _She said confidently. I sighed.

"I hope so."

_Well, I'll let you get back in bed with your human. _She teased. I smiled bashfully and got up to return to Bella's house. _Goodnight, Edward._

"Goodnight, Esme."

I ran out the door, the miles slipping past my feet as I rushed through the forest. I reached her house and climbed up the tree outside Bella's bedroom window. I was about to go in when I heard the door to her room opening and Charlie peeked his balding head in to make sure she was still in her bed. He watched his daughter for a few moments with a loving expression on his face before closing the door. I waited in the tree while he made his way out the front door, but instead of getting into his police cruiser, like I expected him to, he walked over to Bella's truck and flipped up the hood, messing with some of the parts. Curious, I went into his mind.

_Okay, so I just have to plug this back in and…__there! The battery cables are perfect_ I chuckled to myself. Apparently Charlie had been more anxious about Bella sneaking out than I realized.

When her dad finally drove away, I slipped into Bella's room. I was about to slide next to her when Esme's voice rang in my head. _In her bed?_

I froze. Was it wrong to be in her bed? Obviously, I wasn't _doing _anything other than watching her, but was it an invasion of her privacy? An invasion of her personal bubble? By just being in her room I was crossing a line.

I sat in her rocking chair and watched her as she flipped over, mumbling my name softly. Yes, it was better this way – for now, at least.

After watching her for about an hour, Bella moaned and rolled over, pulling her legs closer to her. Suddenly, she jerked up. "Oh!"

I chuckled. "Your hair looks like a haystack…but I like it." Bella's normally straight hair was fluffed up, the back sticking up and the front filled with frizz, but it was cute on her.

"Edward! You stayed!" she sang, jumping off her bed and rushing towards me. Bella jumped into my lap happily. Then she froze, as if just realizing what she had done and looked up at me, seeming worried.

I laughed. This was a new side of her. Her eyes were shining, her face brighter. She was much more cheerful than usual. Of course, she was usually quite cheerful. Bella seemed to have an aura of light surrounding her, giving off warmth and joy to anyone who was near.

"Of course." I said simply, rubbing her back. She slowly lowered her head onto my shoulder, more cautious after being so enthusiastic.

"I was sure it was a dream." she mumbled into my shirt.

Was that what she dreamed of? Spending a whole day with me? Making her way through the forest through a meadow where she saw a sparkling vampire smash two-foot-thick branches against other trees? Or, could I dare think it, kissing me? "You're not that creative." I said doubtfully. But then again, she always surprised me.

"Charlie!" Bella exclaimed, hurrying to the door anxiously.

"He left an hour ago – after reattaching your battery cables, I might add. I have to admit, I was disappointed. Is that really all it would take to stop you, if you were determined to go?" I'd seen how stubborn she could be, if she really wanted something. If she had been sneaking out, it would have been easy to get a ride, with all those wishful suitors flocking at her doorstep. I brushed that thought away quickly as a shiver of rage went down my spine. I turned my attention back to Bella, who was looking at me with a slightly bewildered expression on her face.

"You're not usually this confused in the morning." I held my arms open, inviting her to come back to the rocking chair.

"I need another human minute." she confessed. That would explain it. Never having spent time with humans when they first wake up, I forgot that fully coming back from unconsciousness took a few minutes.

"I'll wait." I promised, leaning back in the chair as Bella skipped into the hallway. I chuckled. It was egocentric to assume that her cheerfulness was because of my being here, but when she catapulted herself into my arms a few minutes later, it was impossible to think otherwise.

"Welcome back." I whispered, wrapping my arms around her as I rocked back and forth.

Bella touched my collar lightly. "You left?"

"I could hardly leave in the clothes I came in," I pointed out. "What would the neighbors think?" She stuck her bottom lip out in an adorable way. I had a sudden urge to lean over and kiss it. "You were very deeply asleep," I said instead. "I didn't miss anything. The talking came earlier." I smiled, remembering.

"What did you hear?" she groaned.

"You said you loved me?" I said softly.

"You knew that already." Bella told me, pressing her head against my shoulder.

I suspected it, but she hadn't ever actually said it before. Without being able to read her mind, I couldn't confirm my suspicions. "It was nice to hear, just the same."

"I love you." she whispered. Unexpected warmth filled me at hearing these words.

"You are my life now." I told her. Without her, I would go back to existing only as the shell I had been when I was forbidden to talk to her, hollow, inhuman, soulless, everything she wasn't.

I continued to rock her as the sun rose. It was amazing how much easier it was to hold her in my arms now. Her luscious aroma filled the entire room, saturating the bed, in the air. I was sure that her fragrance would linger on my clothes. Thirst, of course, burned in the back of my throat, but there was only a small flame, instead of a relentless furnace that scalded my entire mouth, like the one that existed when I first met her.

This reminded me that she was human and that she was probably hungry by now. "Breakfast time." I reminded her. Bella looked up at me, horrified, clutching her neck with both hands. I stared back, stunned. That wasn't what I meant! I would never think of her as breakfast. Maybe dessert… No, Bella wasn't food at all. I quickly dispelled that idea from my mind.

Her face suddenly relaxed into a smile as she chuckled. "Kidding! And you said I couldn't act!"

I frowned. "That wasn't funny."

"It was very funny, and you know it." she said carefully, examining my face for something. I had no clue what she could be looking for. I was again irritated with her mind, which seemed to have a solid, impenetrable wall blocking it from me.

"Shall I rephrase? Breakfast time for the human." I corrected.

"Oh, okay." I tossed her over my shoulder, trying to be gentle, as I carried her out of the room. Bella complained, but didn't thrash against my arms, so I ignored her protests, hoping that she wasn't more upset with me than she seemed. I could never be sure of how she was feeling. That was more Jasper's specialty than mine.

I set her down on a chair and she smiled at me. "What's for breakfast?" she asked happily, absolutely glowing. Her exuberance seemed to fill the whole kitchen, making the room actually cheerful instead of the tacky sort of happiness that the yellow cabinets brought.

I frowned, trying to think of what I used to eat for breakfast when I was human and failing miserably. "Er, I'm not sure. What would you like?" I could probably attempt to make her something, but as I hadn't had any need to cook in over eighty years, it was sure to come out inedible.

"That's alright," She flashed her teeth and got out of her seat. "I fend pretty well for myself. Watch me hunt." I smiled and watched as she opened the cupboard and got out a bowl, filling it with cereal and milk. I suppressed the grimace that was trying to find its way onto my face as she sat down with her bowl of sopping wet, artificially flavored…stuff.

"Can I get you anything?" she asked politely before taking a bite. I rolled my eyes. I highly doubted that she had a container of mountain lion blood sitting in her fridge. That would be slightly – or, actually, more than slightly – disturbing.

"Just eat, Bella." I told her.

I watched her eat, marveling at the sight. I hadn't paid much attention to how she ate, how dainty it was in comparison to some of the teenagers I saw sometimes, stuffing their faces with hamburgers as if there were no tomorrow. She filled the spoon with milk and cereal, careful to keep it from spilling over the edge and onto the table as she placed it on her tongue – which didn't have leftover tidbits of food lingering on it – proceeding to chew with her mouth closed – something that seemed to be quite hard for a large amount of the current population to do – before finally swallowing and repeating the process. It was much more refined than the way vampires – and other humans, come to think of it – fed.

Bella started fidgeting in her chair, seeming uncomfortable under my scrutiny. She cleared her throat and asked, "What's on the agenda for today?"

"Hmmm…" I pondered over a way to suggest that I take her to a house filled with bloodthirsty vampires. "What would you say to meeting my family?" I asked, deciding to be blunt. Bella visibly gulped. "Are you afraid now?" I couldn't help being slightly uplifted by the trivial fact that she gulped at my mentioning this. It was entirely too unnatural for her to take all the things I told her so calmly – of course, I was being completely hypocritical to call a human unnatural.

"Yes." she admitted, ducking her head slightly.

Finally. I smiled. "Don't worry. I'll protect you."

"I'm not afraid of _them._ I'm afraid they won't…" I waited. Be nice? Resist killing her? "…like me." This girl was incredible. She's not afraid of a family of vampires – oh no – she's afraid that the aforementioned vampires won't _like_ her. Wow.

"Won't they be, well, surprised that you would bring someone…like me…home to meet them?" she continued. "Do they know that I know about them?"

I fought back a laugh. "Oh, they already know everything," We'd had many arguments over her knowing about us and the fact that I spent so much time with her. Not to mention that I'd been rebuked and insulted countless times through their thoughts. I smiled. "They'd taken bets yesterday, you know, on whether I'd bring you back," I admitted, "though why anyone would bet against Alice, I can't imagine," Of course, Alice did get things wrong sometimes - when she saw Bella dead at a young age or as a vampire, for instance. "At any rate, we don't have secrets in the family. It's not really feasible, what with my mind reading and Alice seeing the future and all that."

"And Jasper making you feel all warm and fuzzy about spilling your guts, don't forget that," she added.

I smiled. "You paid attention," I praised.

"I've been known to do that every now and then," She then grimaced, for a reason I couldn't understand. "So did Alice see me coming?" Bella asked suddenly.

I looked away. A vivid image of Bella smiling flashed in my mind, her teeth glinting in the light as her crimson eyes gleamed. Another picture followed that, of her laying dead on the floor, her skin the palest, lifeless shade, a bloody gash in her neck where sharp teeth had dug in hungrily – my teeth. They were both visions Alice had seen, only two out of the dozen I had glimpsed. I knew that there were many others that I didn't know about, but none of them were very different. I was already growing extremely uncomfortable with the fact that my sister hadn't had a single vision where Bella was old and had lived her life out when she finally died.

"Something like that," I muttered, staring at the wooden leg of the table intently. I could feel her gaze boring into my face, but I didn't look up just yet. I needed to take a few more seconds to make sure that my face was completely free of the pain I felt when seeing her like that – there was no reason for Bella to think that her life wouldn't end painlessly.

"Is that any good?" I questioned jokingly, changing the subject to her unappealing breakfast. "Honestly, it doesn't look very appetizing."

"Well, it's no irritable grizzly…" she muttered. I scowled. Hearing her refer to drinking blood as breakfast already hit a pressure point.

The picture of the vampire version of Bella was still lingering in my mind. I forced myself to focus on the image Alice had seen, the red-eyed girl with mahogany tresses. Somehow, I couldn't bring myself to think about this side of her for too long. If I thought about how she looked, I would start to notice how her full lips looked imminently kissable, even without the normal redness of them. Or how her heart shaped face curved perfectly, even if the rosiness was gone from her cheeks. Or how it was framed just right by her silky hair, which was the slightest bit curlier. But I couldn't allow myself to think about these things, oh no. Because by taking one look at those blood-red, demonic eyes, the complete opposite of her cherubic demeanor, I wasn't looking at Bella anymore.

But that would never be a problem because I would never let her become a soulless monster.

I glanced at Bella, finding that she was watching me curiously, and smiled. I hoped that my face didn't display any of the inner turmoil going on. "And you should introduce me to your father, too, I think," I added, guessing that this would take her attention off of me. From what I knew of teenage girls, having their parents know about their boyfriend was beyond torture. Although, Esme had told me recently that my knowledge of teenage girls was limited – in less kind words, to my surprise, but that was the gist of it.

"He already knows you."

"As your boyfriend, I mean," I said, involuntarily holding my breath as I half expected her to burst out laughing and exclaim, "You're not my _boyfriend_!"

"Why?" she asked suspiciously, as if she expected me to do something similar.

"Isn't that customary?" If I was bringing her to meet my whole family today, her father should meet me as well.

"I don't know," Bella confessed, almost embarrassedly. Of course, it seemed that she was embarrassed easily, if the constant reddening of her face was anything to go by. "That's not necessary, you know. I don't expect you to…I mean, you don't have to pretend for me."

I smiled, letting my breath out. It didn't look like she was about to deny that I was her boyfriend any time soon. "I'm not pretending," I assured her. She played with her leftover cereal, which looked more like sodden mush than anything remotely edible. The silence hung in the air other than the scraping of her spoon on the bowl until it became unbearable. "Are you going to tell Charlie I'm your boyfriend or not?" I prompted.

"Is that what you are?"

My breath caught in my throat. What? Was I not her boyfriend anymore? Was I ever her boyfriend? No, she can't have meant that. We share our first kiss. Bella didn't seem like the kind of girl to waste her first kiss, which was something pretty important nowadays, as I'd heard in many people's thoughts. She must have meant that since I wasn't completely human, I wasn't exactly her _boy_friend. More like her vampiric boyfriend.

"It's a loose interpretation of the word 'boy,' I'll admit."

"I was under the impression that you were something more, actually," she admitted, looking away from me, turning slightly pink.

I exhaled, relieved. That was extremely reassuring. I was glad that we were on the same page as far as that went. I didn't think of her as my girlfriend, exactly. The word was too shallow, missing the proper amount of commitment and love that I felt. The love of my life, maybe. Or the love of my existence would probably make more sense, as I wasn't alive anymore.

"Well, I don't know if we need to give him all the gory details." Leaving out the part that I was a vampire might be better for Charlie's health. Bella was still staring down at the table, so I lifted her chin, gazing into her eyes as I said, "But he will need some explanation for why I'm around here so much. I don't want Chief Swan getting a restraining order put on me." I fought back a laugh. As if a restraining order would really stop me from coming through her window. Unless, of course, he decided to bolt all the doors and windows. Breaking down the front door or crashing through the window to get inside might be a bit much.

"Will you be?" Bella asked, nervous all of a sudden. "Will you really be here?" She looked worried and excited at the same time, as if she were afraid to believe it.

"As long as you want me."

"I'll always want you," she cautioned. "Forever."

My heart dropped. Slowly, I walked to her side, reaching out to touch her warm cheek, standing a few feet away. If only she understood what that meant, wanting to be with me forever. She would lose this warmth that I was enjoying, the beat of her heart, all essence of humanity would be lost, including her soul. How could she want something like that? Want something like me?

"Does that make you sad?" she asked softly. I didn't answer, but instead gazed into her rich, dark brown eyes, losing myself in the depth and intensity as she stared back. I was able to relax, looking into those wide, innocent, loving eyes, better than I thought was possible. She completed me, was everything I wasn't, and I loved her for it. But how could Bella possibly love me back, when I was the opposite of her amazing goodness?

"Are you finished?" I murmured eventually, coming back to the present. Bella jumped up immediately.

"Yes."

"Get dressed – I'll wait here," I told her, sitting down in one of the chairs at the table. I watched her climb the stairs, half skipping, half walking, and go into her room, shutting the door behind her. I stood up and picked up her bowl, washing out the remains in the sink. I gagged slightly at the sight of the light brown globule sliding down the drain. How did she eat that vile substance? It was slightly unsettling to think that what I just got rid of was sitting in her stomach. Ugh… I shuddered. Of course, it wasn't as if my diet was any less disgusting.

I took my phone out of my pocket and called home quickly. "Hello, Edward," Esme's voice answered after a few rings, having seen my number on the caller ID.

"Hi, Esme. Bella and I will be stopping by in about half an hour or so," I told her.

"That's great, Edward," Esme said, her voice ecstatic. "I can't wait to meet her. But…" She paused. "I'm not sure if Rosalie and Emmett will be here," she continued, sounding upset.

I sighed. I had expected as much. "I didn't think so."

"I'll see you soon, Edward."

"Goodbye, Esme." I flipped my phone shut and slipped it into my pocket.

I was much too eager to see her to wait in the kitchen, so I stood at the foot of the stairs. It was also probably safer, just in case she fell down as she skipped down. With Bella's adorable clumsiness and all the skipping that she'd been doing lately, going down the stairs sounded hazardous. A broken leg was the last thing I needed right now.

"Okay," she called as she skipped down the stairs. "I'm decent."

Looking up at her, I found that this statement was completely untrue.

Bella was wearing the dark blue blouse that she had on when I met her in Port Angeles. It was a shade that complimented her pale skin, bringing out the rosiness of her cheeks and the depth of her innocent eyes. It was the first time she wore anything other than jeans around me and I found that the long, tan one that she had put on fitted her nicely. Her brown hair was pulled back in a ponytail and I could see her whole face, which was usually partly covered by stray pieces of hair.

She was exquisite.

She crashed into me, eyes widening into a startled expression. I made sure she was balanced before holding her at arms' length, scanning her outfit once more, then pulled her close. "Wrong again," I whispered in her ear, breathing in her heavenly scent. "You are utterly indecent – no one should look so tempting, it's not fair."

Bella blushed slightly but asked, "Tempting how? I can change…"

I shook my head and sighed. I was probably the only one who found her so tempting in this outfit and I liked it far too much for her to return in another one. Of course, she looked stunning in all clothes. "You are _so _absurd." I delicately kissed her forehead, cautious not to use too much pressure, and smiled when I heard her heart speed up. "Shall I explain how you are tempting me?" I asked, running my fingers down her spine. I wasn't surprised that her breathing became labored, although I was when I found myself inhaling more quickly. Very slowly and carefully, making sure she knew exactly what I was going to do, I lowered my head to hers and met her beautiful lips with mine, parting them a fraction of an inch.

She suddenly fell in my arms, her knees buckling under her. "Bella?" I exclaimed in panic, holding her upright. What did I do? Did I hurt her by mistake? I was trying so hard to be gentle! Had I accidentally crushed her spine? Was she paralyzed?

"You…made…me…faint," she said breathlessly in an accusatory voice.

"_What am I going to do with you?" _I asked, groaning in frustration, as I hid the enormous relief that I felt. I silently rejoiced the fact that she was still alive. "Yesterday I kiss you, and you attack me! Today you pass out on me!" Bella laughed quietly, still having trouble breathing. She wasn't even trying to stand up. "So much for being good at everything," I sighed sadly. Sure, I could run at over 100 mph, but have a normal kiss with a girl? No way.

"That's the problem. You're _too _god. Far, far too good."

Right. Good enough to make her faint. That was something I was proud of.

"Do you feel sick?" I asked, masking the worry I felt. Was it her disgust of me that made her collapse? That would only be natural, of course, after being kissed by a murderer.

"No – that wasn't the same kind of fainting at all. I don't know what happened," Bella shook her head bashfully. "I think I forgot to breathe." I wasn't sure if I should feel glad that she wasn't repulsed by me, if I should be upset that I dazzled her into momentary unconsciousness, or if I should be disappointed that I _didn't _repulse her.

"I can't take you anywhere like this," I said instead. If she decided to faint at my house, I would never hear the end of it.

"I'm fine," she assured me. "Your family is going to think I'm insane anyway, what's the difference?"

I examined her face for a second. She was breathing more normally now, was putting weight on her feet, and the color was coming back to her face. On that note, I admitted, "I'm very partial to that color with your skin." She flushed, as I expected her to, and looked away embarrassedly.

"Look, I'm trying really hard not to think about what I'm about to do, so can we go already?" she asked. I didn't want to let her out of my arms, but Alice was probably bouncing off the walls in excitement while Esme was worrying out of her mind. I was slightly worried about Jasper meeting her, as it was still hard for him to abstain, but he went hunting last night, so he should be fine.

"And you're worried, not because you're heading to meet a houseful of vampires, but because you think those vampires won't approve of you, correct?" I verified, the sentence sounding out of order.

"That's right."

I shook my head, still not completely sure if I should be disappointed in her or overjoyed. I instead said the only thing I was completely sure of.

"You're incredible."

**Author's Note: **If you love Edward, then review! It really only takes two seconds. Just saying, "good" or "keep going" or "you should really drop this story" or whatever works. Of course, long reviews filled with compliments and constructive criticism are also encouraged.


	4. Chapter 15 in Twilight Part Two

**Author's Note: **THANK YOU for all the reviews!!!!!! They keep me going like the Energizer bunny grins

Also, I added a small section to the last chapter which takes place while Bella is getting dressed, so if you got an alert and were all, "Hey, she already did this chapter!" then that's why.

**Disclaimer: **I don't own Edward or Bella or the magnificent Cullen family or Chapter 15 of Twilight. I only own a beat-up copy.

"Wow," Bella breathed in an awed voice as I drove up my driveway. She looked out the window with wide eyes.

"You like it?" I asked with a smile.

"It…has a certain charm."

I laughed and teasingly yanked her ponytail. That was one way to describe it. "Ready?" I questioned as I opened her door for her.

"Not even a little bit," she responded in a light voice. "Let's go." She smiled as she got out and smoothed her hair anxiously.

"You look lovely," I reassured her, unable to stop my eyes from quickly scanning over her form. I took her hand, enjoying the feeling of her delicate fingers entwined in mine as we walked onto the porch. She tensed as we neared the house and I stroked her warm hand with my thumb, trying to comfort her.

Before opening the door, I scanned my family's minds. They had all heard the deafening roar of Bella's truck and were ready for us. While Alice and Esme were both bouncing off the walls in excitement – Alice more than Esme – Carlisle was surprised that Bella had actually wanted to come, and Jasper was hoping that the scent of her blood wouldn't linger in the house. I hadn't thought about the latter. Having that smell around would probably be uncomfortable for most of the household – other than Carlisle – and I assumed that Rosalie would be furious.

I turned the handle of the door, and walked in, Bella behind me. Her eyes widened as they scanned the front room and Esme and Carlisle, standing next to my piano. They smiled warmly at her, but didn't move, careful not to scare her. _He's holding her hand! _Esme rejoiced.

"Carlisle, Esme, this is Bella," I introduced.

"You're very welcome, Bella," Carlisle said, hesitantly moving forward with his hand extended. Bella took a step in his direction and took his hand. Esme welcomed her as well. _She's so warm. _

She thought as they shook hands. _And pretty, too_. I found myself smiling at this, watching my beautiful Bella fearlessly greet vampires.

"Where are Alice and Jasper?" I asked, glancing around the room. I quickly saw them at the head of the stairs, smiling.

"Hey, Edward!" Alice shouted happily, running down the stairs at vampire speed, and then jerking to a halt in front of Bella, who looked slightly startled. What was she doing? Carlisle and Esme had similar thoughts and looked at her warningly. _Careful_… Carlisle thought, tensing.

"Hi, Bella!" she exclaimed, leaning over to kiss Bella's cheek. My parents stiffened. _What in the world...?_ Esme thought. _She's going to frighten the poor girl! _I froze when I heard Alice's thoughts. _Mmm…very pleasant. Floral, maybe…_ Oh, she'd better not–

"You do smell nice, I never noticed before," she noted, making Bella blush profusely, which only enhanced her scent. There was an awkward silence that was filled by calm, created by Jasper. I raised an eyebrow at my brother. _She was embarrassed, _he explained. _And blushing, _he added with a bit of shame. I quickly understood and looked away.

"Hello, Bella," Jasper continued aloud, not offering his hand, like I had encouraged him to do. She greeted him and smiled at him before turning to the rest of the family.

"It's nice to meet you all – you have a very beautiful home," she complimented.

"Thank you," Esme said, having furnished and decorated it herself. "We're so glad that you came." _Such a brave, girl_. Esme commented silently with admiration.

_Edward. _Carlisle thought directly at me and I turned my gaze to him. _Alice saw some visitors coming.__ They…__don't have the same diet as us. _I tensed and my eyes flickered to Bella and back. He saw this and continued hurriedly. _They shouldn't be a problem;__ don't worry. But,__ I wanted to know if you __were__planning__on telling__ Bella? _ I thought about this for a moment. With Bella's horrible luck, she was sure to do something to attract them to her. I would have to take precautions to make sure she was safe. It would probably be best to tell her so that I wouldn't seem excessively protective. I nodded once.

"Do you play?" Esme asked Bella, who was looking at my piano interestedly.

She shook her head hurriedly. "Not at all. But it's so beautiful," I felt a brief swell of pride. "Is it yours?"

"No," Esme laughed. "Edward didn't tell you he was musical?"

"No," She glared at me angrily – or at least attempted to. With her angelic beauty and innocent demeanor, I found that her expression was more adorable than frightening. "I should have known, I guess," Esme raised her eyebrows confusedly. I was puzzled as well. "Edward can do everything, right?"

Jasper snickered quietly, although in his mind, he was in hysterics. _Edward can do everything, huh? HAH! _Esme looked at me in disapproval. "I hope you haven't been showing off – it's rude," she chastised. Alice had a different outlook on this. _Good job, Edward! _She congratulated me. _Forget Esme. Showing off is __absolutely__ fine when it's for your girlfriend._

"Just a bit," I laughed, which, as I predicted, made Esme relax slightly.

"He's been too modest actually," Bella chimed in. _What? _Alice thought. _Edward, you're going to have to work harder on this whole showing off thing. Hey, why don't you practice on me? _She asked, sounding excited. I tuned out her thoughts hurriedly. The last time I was forced to practice pick up lines on Alice, Emmett walked in, stared at us awestruck for a few moments, then ran to Jasper, screaming that I had gone insane and was hitting on his wife.

"Well, play for her," Esme urged.

"You just said showing off was rude," I protested.

"There are exceptions to every rule," she shot back.

"I'd like to hear you play," Bella offered hopefully.

"It's settled then," Esme declared, shoving me towards my piano. Bella was pulled along and I sat her on the bench next to me. I sighed and glanced at her in exasperation before beginning Esme's favorite song.

Bella's mouth dropped open and she stared at me in amazement. My family laughed quietly at her expression. _Nice. _Jasper commented. _Perfect, Edward! Keep going! _Alice encouraged. _Oh, they look so sweet together…_ Esme sighed happily.

I looked at her still awed face and winked, pleased by her reaction. "Do you like it?"

"You wrote this?" she gasped in surprise, her beautiful brown eyes widening.

I nodded. "It's Esme's favorite," Bella shook her head with closed eyes. "What's wrong?" I questioned anxiously.

"I'm feeling extremely insignificant," she whispered. Insignificant? She was the most significant thing in my life. I shifted into the lullaby that I composed for her, trying to show her this way how amazing she really was.

"You inspired this one," I murmured. She opened her mouth as if about to speak, then closed it. _I'll see you later, Edward. _Esme told me, following the family up the stairs. "They like you, you know," I told her once everyone had left the room. "Esme especially."

Bella looked over her shoulder. "Where did they go?" she asked in confusion.

"Very subtly giving us some privacy, I suppose."

She sighed sadly, looking down. "_They _like me. But Rosalie and Emmett…"

I frowned. That shouldn't bother her. "Don't worry about Rosalie. She'll come around." I hoped.

She pursed her full lips. I had a sudden urge to lean over and kiss them, but with my family so nearby, I refrained from doing so. "Emmett?" she asked.

"Well, he thinks _I'm_ a lunatic, it's true, but he doesn't have a problem with you. He's trying to reason with Rosalie." Easier said than done. Every time he brought it up, she responded by throwing some insults at Bella and I, then leaving the room in a fury.

"What is it that upsets her?" she pressed, seeming intensely distressed by the fact that she wasn't liked.

I sighed. There were a lot of things that upset Rosalie. I decided only to mention a few. "Rosalie struggles the most with...with what we are," Other than me, of course. "It's hard for her to have someone on the outside know the truth. And she's a little jealous," I added.

"_Rosalie _is jealous of _me_?" she asked in utter disbelief.

I shrugged. "You're human. She wishes that she were too."

"Oh," she murmured. "Even Jasper though…"

"That's really my fault," I admitted, relieved that we were off the subject of Rosalie. "I told you he was the most recent to try out way of life. I warned him to keep his distance." Being attacked by my brother would probably not have been the best welcome.

"Esme and Carlisle…?" she questioned.

"Are happy to see me happy. Actually, Esme wouldn't care if you had a third eye and webbed feet. All this time she's been worried about me, afraid that there was something missing from my essential makeup, that I was too young when Carlisle changed me. She's ecstatic. Every time I touch you, she just about chokes with satisfaction." I grinned.

"Alice seems very…enthusiastic," she noted.

My jaw clenched. "Alice has her own way of looking at things," I said though my teeth. As much as I was glad that she had accepted Bella so quickly, I hated the reason she did it for. Alice was convinced that sooner or later, we would have a new vampire in the household, so it was best to welcome her into the family. I wasn't opposed to having Bella as a part of the family – the idea sent a pleasant tingle down my spine – although the visions of Bella the vampire didn't settle with me.

"And you're not going to explain that, are you?" Bella guessed. I didn't respond, but let my music fill the silence instead. "So what was Carlisle telling you before?" she asked suddenly.

I frowned. "You noticed that, did you?"

"Of course," she said nonchalantly, shrugging. She was much more observant than I thought.

I gazed at her for a few moments before answering. "He wanted to tell me some news – he didn't know if it was something I would share with you."

"Will you?"

Of course. I just mentioned it, didn't I? Saying that I had information, but information that I wasn't going to share, would be downright rude. "I have to," I said instead, "because I'm going to be a little…overbearingly protective over the next few days – or weeks – and I wouldn't want you to think that I'm naturally a tyrant."

"What's wrong?" Bella asked, her forehead crumpling slightly in worry.

"Nothing's wrong, exactly," I assured her. "Alice just sees some visitors coming soon. They know we're here, and they're curious."

"Visitors?"

"Yes…well, they aren't like us, of course – in their hunting habits, I mean. They probably won't come into town at all, but I'm certainly not going to let you out my sight till they're gone," After pondering over this for a moment, Bella shivered. "Finally, a rational response!" I sighed. "I was beginning to think you had no sense of self-preservation at all," I joked. She smiled and let her gaze drift over the empty room.

"Not what you expected is it?" I asked.

"No," she confessed.

"No coffins, no piled skulls in the corners; I don't even think we have cobwebs…what a disappointment this must be for you," I teased.

"It's so light…so open."

"It's the one place we never have to hide," I said, my joking tone gone. During my dark years, having a home where I didn't have to conceal myself was something I missed. Coming back to a house similar to this one in terms of the large, open rooms and color scheme, was a pleasant change from dark streets where I made my existence.

The song I was playing came to a close, pulling me back from my dark trip down memory lane. "Thank you," Bella whispered, wiping her tearing eyes, a light blush coming to her cheeks. There was still a droplet at the corner of her eye, hanging onto one long eyelash. I reached forward, and collected it onto my fingertip, examining it for a moment. So clear, so pure, a tear of happiness. Quickly, I lifted my finger to my tongue.

Even though there was barely any liquid there, the flavor filled my mouth. It was a less concentrated version of her normal fragrance, and had a salty tang. The drop didn't bring on any bloodlust, and I was able to savor the taste, so perfect, just like her. The essence of Isabella Swan.

Bella looked at me wonderingly. I was quite sure that I had tasted it in a movement much too fast for her eyes to catch, so I gazed back into her dark eyes and smiled. "Do you want to see the rest of the house?" I eventually asked.

"No coffins?" she verified sarcastically.

I laughed and took her small, warm hand in mine, pulling her towards the staircase. "No coffins," I assured her. We walked upstairs and down the hallway and I pointed the rooms out as we passed them. After walking by Alice's room, Bella stopped abruptly, staring with a dazed expression at the large, dark cross hanging on the wall above her. I laughed softly at her mouth hanging open. "You can laugh," I told her amusedly. "It _is _sort of ironic."

She was silent as she approached the cross cautiously, reaching up with her pointer finger out, but stopping before touching it. "It must be very old," she said quietly.

I shrugged. To humans, yes, it was extremely old. "Early sixteen-thirties, more or less," I answered.

Bella turned to me with wide, shocked eyes. "Why do you keep this here?" she questioned in awe.

"Nostalgia," I said simply. "It belonged to Carlisle's father." Other than Alice and Jasper, we all had things from our human life. For me, it was my house in Chicago.

"He collected antiques?" she guessed.

"No. He carved this himself. It hung on the wall above the pulpit in the vicarage where he preached." I was amazed that Bella's eyes could get any bigger as she whirled around to stare at the antique with new insight. When the silence dragged on, I asked anxiously, "Are you alright?" She hadn't seemed to care very much when I told her my age of one hundred years, but was this too much of a shock for her?

"How old is Carlisle?" she asked, still looking up.

"He just celebrated his three hundred and sixty-second birthday," I answered hesitantly. This time Bella turned to gaze at me, her eyes questioning and a bit surprised, but had no trace of fright. I watched her face for any sign of switching to fear or horror as I began Carlisle's story with him being born in London. She was surprisingly calm though the whole story, her eyes showing nothing but interest, even as I recounted him being attacked, as if hearing the life of someone who she didn't know. I skipped the gory details, jumping to Carlisle's realization of his transformation.

"How are you feeling?" I asked, sure that she must be at least a bit horrified, if not more.

"I'm fine," Bella told me. I couldn't find any evidence that she was otherwise as she bit her lip. She seemed to be trying to stop a flow of questions; curiosity filled her eyes.

I smiled. "I expect you have a few more questions for me?"

"A few."

My smile widened at her tone and I took her hand again, pulling her towards Carlisle's office as I said, "Come on, then. I'll show you."

**Author's Note: **Review! Review! You're doing great so far – don't break the streak!


	5. Chapter 16 in Twilight

**Author's Note: **Thank you for the reviews!! Keep 'em coming.

**Disclaimer: **Don't own it, never have owned it. What makes you think I ever will? It all belongs to the amazing Stephenie Meyer.

I walked back down the hall we had come from, leading her to Carlisle's office. He was reading a recent textbook on neurosurgery, but I noticed that he was half-listening to our conversation outside the door and approach. "Come in," he greeted out loud for Bella's benefit. Carlisle marked his spot with a bookmark and set the volume on the table. "What can I do for you?" he asked, standing up.

"I wanted to show Bella some of our history. Well," I clarified, "your history actually."

"We didn't mean to disturb you," Bella added politely.

"Not at all," Carlisle smiled. "Where are you going to start?"

"The Waggoner." I placed my hand on Bella's shoulder and turned her around to face my father's old paintings. Her heart faltered and the beat was irregular for a moment. Hearing this, Carlisle fought back a smile. _Don't give the poor girl a heart attack, _he teased. Ignoring him, I started with a small sepia painting. "London in the sixteen-fifties," I said, pointing it out.

"The London of my youth," Carlisle added from behind us. Bella flinched for a reason unknown to me. I squeezed her hand gently in reassurance.

"Will _you _tell the story?" I invited. Bella turned her head to look at him.

"I would," he told me with a smile. "But I'm actually running a bit late. The hospital called this morning – Dr. Snow is taking a sick day. Besides, you know the stories as well as I do." That was true, but I couldn't help being slightly disappointed. Explaining things like your vampire 'father' attempting suicide wasn't the most cheerful topic to talk about with your girlfriend. He smiled at us once more before leaving.

Bella stared at the painting for a few moments before asking, "What happened then?" She turned to meet my gaze. "When he realized what had happened to him?"

I took an unnecessary breath and looked at a painting of a meadow in the forest, the site of Carlisle's first meal. "When he knew what he had become," I began reluctantly and quietly, "he rebelled against it. He tried to destroy himself. But that's not easily done."

"How?" Bella questioned in shock.

"He jumped from great heights. He tried to drown himself in the ocean…but he was young to the new life, and very strong. It is amazing that he was able to resist…" killing anyone "feeding…while he was still so new. The instinct is more powerful then, it takes over everything," I said, thinking back to the helplessness of the first few months, the lack of control. "But he was so repelled by himself that he had the strength to try to kill himself with starvation."

"Is that possible?"

"No, there are very few ways we can be killed," Bella opened her mouth to ask why, but I cut her off, really not wanting to explain our gruesome way of death – or whatever happened to us when we were destroyed. "So he grew very hungry, and eventually weak," I continued. "He strayed as far as he could from the human populace, recognizing that his willpower was weakening, too…" When I mentioned Carlisle's swimming to France, Bella's eyes widened.

"He _swam _to France?" she interrupted in astonishment.

"People swim in the Channel all the time, Bella," I reminded her.

"That's true, I guess," Bella said slowly. "It just sounded funny in that context. Go on," she prompted.

"Swimming is easy for us–"

"Everything is easy for _you_," she interrupted again, frowning in irritation. I waited with a smile. "I won't interrupt again, I promise."

"Because, technically, we don't need to breathe," I continued.

"You–" she began in alarm.

"No, no, you promised," I stopped her with a laugh, putting a finger to her warm lips. "Do you want to hear the story or not?"

"You can't spring something like that on me, and then expect me not to say anything," Bella objected in a murmur, her lips moving against my fingertip. I was hit by a sudden urge to lean down and kiss her, just once on those beautiful lips, so I moved my hand to rest it against her neck. This made her heart begin to race, which didn't exactly help my situation either.

"You don't have to _breathe_?" Bella insisted.

"No, it's not necessary," I shrugged. "Just a habit." A habit that saved her life. If it weren't for my ability to hold my breath for an entire hour…

"How long can you go…without _breathing_?" she demanded.

"Indefinitely, I suppose; I don't know. It gets a bit uncomfortable – being without a sense of smell."

"A bit uncomfortable," she repeated softly, her face twisted slightly as if she were trying to believe it. My hand dropped to my side. Had I pushed her too far? It would be quite understandable; it wasn't everyday that you heard that the person – or vampire – standing next to you wasn't required to breathe. I waited for her to back away slowly, for her face to contort into a mask of revulsion, for her to throw the door open and scramble away from me.

Bella looked up at my face, a slight crease appearing in her forehead that she seemed to be unaware of. "What is it?" she asked worriedly, reaching up to touch my cheek. It was impossible not to relax and I sighed.

"I keep waiting for it to happen," I admitted.

"For what to happen?" she questioned in confusion.

"I know that at some point, something I tell you or something you see is going to be too much. And then you'll run away from me, screaming as you go," One corner of my mouth attempted to pull itself up in a smile. "I won't stop you. I want this to happen," Somewhere deep inside of me, past all the selfishness. "Because I want you to be safe. And yet, I want to be with you. The two desires are impossible to reconcile…" I watched as her face smoothed out, the crease disappearing. Still, I was silent, waiting for her to flee for her life.

"I'm not running anywhere."

Yet. I smiled, despite myself. "We'll see."

She frowned at me and changed the topic. "So, go on – Carlisle was swimming to France."

My gaze instinctively flickered to the largest painting on the wall and Bella followed my eyes. "Carlisle swam to France, and continued on through Europe, to the universities there. By night he studied music, science, medicine – and found his calling, his penance, in that, in saving human lives," It was impossible to talk about Carlisle without letting the respect and honor I had for him show. I can't begin to imagine the effort it would take to get to such a level of restraint.

I continued Carlisle's story, telling her of the Volturi, his travel to America, and finally, his decision to create a companion for himself – me. I lingered on my path down memory lane for a while longer, memories of my first few weeks dancing in my mind, before turning back to Bella with a smile. "And so we've come full circle," I concluded.

"Have you always stayed with Carlisle, then?" she wondered aloud.

I tensed fractionally, trying to keep my face impassive as I replied, "Almost always." I put my hand on the small of her back and directed her out of the room into the hallway, hoping that she wouldn't inquire further.

Of course, being naturally curious, Bella prompted, "Almost?"

I sighed, trying to formulate an answer that wouldn't depict me as a complete monster. "Well," I began reluctantly. "I had a typical bout of rebellious adolescence – about ten years after I was...born…created, whatever you want to call it. I wasn't sold on his life of abstinence, and I resented him for curbing my appetite. So I went off on my own for a while." There. That didn't sound very dreadful.

"Really?" Bella asked, her eyes wide – but not with fright. Oh no, Bella was interested, fascinated. Maybe I should've made myself clearer, depict my story more horribly.

"That doesn't repulse you?" I verified in shock.

"No," she answered without hesitation.

"Why not?" I pressed, uneasy at her lack of rational fear.

"I guess…it sounds reasonable."

I laughed. Reasonable. She was probably the only person on earth who would call a vampire's decision to live as a lonely, stalking killer as reasonable. I explained the reasons for my departure and return as we made our way to my room at the end of the hall.

"…They welcomed me back like the prodigal. It was more than I deserved," I finished, stopping at the door. "My room," I said, opening the door and walking in. I waited for her reaction as her eyes widened, roaming across the couch, window, carpet.

"Good acoustics?" she finally said, her gaze lingering on my sound system. I laughed softly and nodded, picking up a remote to turn on the jazz I had been playing yesterday morning. She walked over to my wall of CDs. I watched her look curiously at the titles, already seeming to have moved on from all the vampire-related secrets I told her, from the unnecessary breathing to my morbid and depressing past. She was so welcoming, so accepting – I could tell her secrets without hearing criticism or seeing a face of horror. It was nice, not having to dance around certain subjects for fear of upsetting her. I realized with a start that I was pleased.

"How do you have these organized?" Bella asked, pulling me out of my epiphany.

"Ummm, by year, and then by personal preference within that frame," I answered, my tone still slightly distracted.

Bella turned, seeming to hear the distance in my voice, and looked at me curiously. "What?" she questioned, cocking her head slightly to the side.

"I was preparing to feel…relieved," I admitted. "Having you know about everything, not needing to feel more than that. I _like_ it," I said with some remaining awe in my voice. "It makes me…happy." I shrugged nonchalantly, and smiled, feeling oddly lighter.

"I'm glad," she told me happily, returning the smile. I examined her expression expectantly, so bright and open, and felt my own smile disappear and my eyebrows come together. It still didn't make sense, though. I told her only a couple minutes ago that nearly seventy years before, I had been a murderer. And here she was, smiling at me!

"You're still waiting for the running and the screaming, aren't you?" Bella guessed. It was amazing how in tune she was to me, after only knowing me for such a short period of time. She was either the most observant person on earth, or could occasionally read my mind. My lips twitched up as I nodded.

"I hate to burst your bubble," she told me with a mocking smile. "But you're really not as scary as you think you are. I don't find you scary at all, actually."

Hold on, _what_?

I froze, raising my eyebrows in incredulity. That was humanly impossible. It would go against her natural instincts not to be frightened of me, even more so now that she actually knew how dangerous I was. I grinned suddenly, a tempting and completely un-Edward-esque idea coming to me. "You _really_ shouldn't have said that," I growled, chuckling darkly. My lips pulled back over my teeth as I shifted my weight so that I was half-crouched.

She stepped back nervously and glared at me, registering what I was about to do. "You wouldn't."

Oh yes, I would.

I leaped at her, encasing her in the safety of my arms, crashing into my couch with her half on top of me so that she wouldn't be crushed. She gasped and tried to wiggle out of my secure hold. I hugged her closer to my chest as I grinned. Bella turned her head to look at me in alarm, then relaxed when she saw my playful expression.

"You were saying?" I verified, growling teasingly.

"That you are a very, very terrifying monster," Bella responded breathlessly, but her sarcastic tone assured me that she was joking. Her heart pounded madly in her chest.

"Much better," I approved with a smile.

"Um," She twisted, trying to free herself. "Can I get up now?" My only response was to laugh.

I heard the Alice's thoughts before she spoke, leaning against my doorframe. _You go, Edward! _She congratulated. "Can we come in?" Alice asked in an amused tone with Jasper behind her, who was too shocked to see my arms wrapped around a human as we lay on my couch to think anything other than, _Holy…_

Bella struggled frantically as she blushed. I didn't want to let go of her, but it would be rude to keep her embarrassed in front of my siblings, so I shifted, bringing her onto my lap, which meant that I was still able to wrap my arms around her warm waist. "Go ahead," I invited, still laughing quietly.

Alice was entirely too comfortable with our embrace. I looked at her questioningly and she answered in her mind. _Edward, I see you two__ hugging and kissing all the time__in my visions._ Well, that was certainly an embarrassing reason. _Speaking of which… _No way. There was absolutely no way she was asking if I had kissed the girl sitting on my lap at the moment. I glared at her and she smiled back, sitting down on my carpet.

My brother was still staring at me in incredulity. _How can he do that? _Jasper wondered in reference to my close proximity to her blood. _Edward must really like her. _A smile broke onto my face and I looked down at my angel. Yes, I really, really liked her. I loved her. _No, impossible…__Is that…_love_ in the air_He realized with a start. Bing, bing, bing. We have a winner.

I though the expression of astonishment would be permanently frozen on his face, until Alice announced, "It sounded like you were having Bella for lunch, and we came to see if you would share."

A grin broke out on my face as Bella stiffened in my arms for a moment. I held her closer to me as I replied, "Sorry, I don't believe I have enough to spare."

_I never thought I'd see the day Edward hugged a girl with emotions floating around like that. _Jasper teased, walking into the room. "Actually," he corrected with a smile. "Alice says there's going to be a real storm tonight, and Emmett wants to play ball. Are you game?"

I usually wouldn't have hesitated to agree, but Carlisle's news lingered in my mind, making me hesitate. "Of course you should bring Bella," Alice added.

"Do you want to go?" I asked Bella hopefully. I wasn't sure if she enjoyed watching baseball – not that ours were very similar to Mariner games.

She examined my expression for a moment then agreed. "Sure. Um, where are we going?"

"We have to wait for thunder to play ball – you'll see why." I didn't know how to explain that the collision between the ball and the bat – or of us – was loud enough that people were sure to wonder why there was thunder if it wasn't raining.

"Will I need an umbrella?"

We all laughed, but Jasper verified, "Will she?"

"No," Alice told him confidently. "The storm will hit over town. It should be dry enough in the clearing."

"Good then." Enthusiasm spread through the room, no doubt created by Jasper.

"Let's go see if Carlisle will come," Alice announced, skipping out of the room with Jasper following her. _Have fun, Edward! _she teased me.

"Like you don't know," he joked and closed the door behind him, giving me a similar adieu. What was with everyone overreacting at my being in contact with her?

"What will we be playing?" Bella questioned.

I hid a smile at the thought of her wielding a bat. If the racket incident was anything to go by, her joining our game probably wouldn't go very well. "_You _will be watching," I corrected, hoping that I didn't sound too controlling. "We will be playing baseball.

She rolled her eyes. "Vampires like baseball."

"It's the American pastime," I told her, by voice sarcastically grave.

**Author's Note: **Sorry this is so short – the chapter really isn't all that long when you take out all the clumps of dialogue that tell our favorite vampires' stories. Since I have all this time on my hands from winter break, I should be able to get chapters out faster. As always, review, review!


	6. Chapter 17 in Twilight Part One

**Author's Note: **I'm loving all the reviews. Over fifty! How exciting is that? Well, it's probably not very exciting for you, but just smile and nod as I jump up and down in circles.

**Disclaimer: **I don't own Twilight. If I did, I wouldn't be writing fan fiction, would I?

After spending another hour or so at my house, Jasper told me – through his thoughts, of course – that if Bella stayed any longer, the house was going to smell unbearable for the next couple of days. He felt bad, of course, for mentioning it, but I had to agree. It wasn't fair to make this any harder for him.

I didn't tell Bella this, though, not wanting to offend her. My excuse for leaving was that if Charlie came home and she wasn't there, he might panic. She agreed with me, so after saying goodbye to my family – minus Jasper; his thirst was getting a bit out of hand despite his hunting yesterday – we got in her absurdly slow truck and I drove her home.

My plan was to spend a few more hours with Bella until Charlie came home, at which time I would go back home, get a car and come back. This arrangement was crushed into fine dust when I realized who was waiting for Bella on her front porch.

"Incorrigible old man," I muttered angrily in a voice too low for Bella to hear me. I pulled her truck up to the curb and parked, trying to figure out what the werewolf descendant wanted through his thoughts. _I can't believe that demonic bloodsucker is driving her truck – my old truck! _I flinched involuntarily, feeling brief revulsion at finding out that my angel's decrepit truck used to belong to a mongrel. _Charlie will stop __this__ once I warn him. He's smart enough to want to protect his only daughter from that…_ Billy Black proceeded to call me a series of adjectives and nouns that clashed with the blank expression on his face.

My concentration moved to the boy who was younger than Bella – Jacob Black, the one who broke the treaty. _Oh God, my father must be the dimmest__ most superstitious man on the planet. I can't believe I let him convince me to come. That guy is probably her boyfriend. I feel like an idiot, _he thought, looking down in humiliation.

"This is crossing the line," I murmured, referring to Billy Black's plot to keep Bella away from me.

"He came to warn Charlie?" Bella guessed, her expression appalled. I nodded, glaring at him. _Filthy leech. _"Let me deal with this," she advised.

It _was _probably better if I didn't get involved. I wouldn't be able to dissuade the old man from his plan, and trying wouldn't help the situation. "That's probably best. Be careful, though. The child has no idea."

"Jacob is not that much younger than I am," Bella reminded me, venom – no pun intended – slipping into her voice.

I turned my gaze to her. Her beautiful face automatically made me relax. Slightly. Being completely calm would be impossible with two Quileutes standing less than twenty yards away. "Oh, I know," I told her, a smile turning up the corners of my lips. She sighed and put her hand on the door handle, but didn't turn it.

"Get them inside so I can leave," I told her. "I'll be back around dusk."

"Do you want my truck?" she offered.

I rolled my eyes. "I could _walk _home faster than this truck moves." If you could really call it a truck. Honestly, it was more of a lump of red metal.

"You don't have to leave."

I smiled at her reluctance to get out of the cab and the longing on her face as she said this. I didn't want to leave either. The Blacks sort of demolished that plan, though. "Actually, I do. After you get rid of _them_ you still have to prepare Charlie to meet your new boyfriend." I grinned, despite the circumstances, at the prospect.

Bella groaned, remembering. "Thanks a lot."

I smiled, lifting only one corner of my mouth. Bella's eyes were glassy for a moment, then went back to their normal deep brown. I wondered if I'd just imagined it. "I'll be back soon," I promised. I wanted to kiss her goodbye, but as Charlie hadn't met me yet, it probably wouldn't be very prudent for Billy to witness it. Instead of touching my lips to her warm ones, l leaned down to press them under her jaw. Curses and insults flew through the senile Quileute's mind as Bella's heart sped up.

"_Soon,_" she emphasized, stepping into the rain and closing the door behind her. "Hey, Billy. Hi, Jacob," she greeted her visitors in a cheery voice. "Charlie's gone for the day – I hope you haven't been waiting long."

"Not long," Billy answered. He waved to a brown paper bag sitting in his lap. "I just wanted to bring this up." _And to notify Charlie of the monster his daughter is hanging around._ My grip on the steering wheel tightened.

"Thanks. Why don't you come in for a minute and dry off?" Bella invited, gesturing inside. "Here let me take that." Before following them, Bella met my eyes. I had to focus on not breaking the wheel now as I restrained myself from going in with her.

"You'll want to put it in the fridge…" Billy told her, his voice being cut off as the door shut. Not wanting to leave, but having no other choice, I got out of Bella's monster truck and locked the doors before setting off into the forest.

I jerked to a stop three times on the way home, considering going back to eavesdrop on their conversation. With an irritated growl each time, I kept going, telling myself that Bella didn't appreciate my listening in on her when I wasn't invited.

When I walked in the house, Alice was at the door bombarding me with questions about Bella.

"What happened in the meadow? Did you kiss her? Did she kiss you back? Does she know that you spent the night? Does she care?"

"Whoa, whoa, Alice, slow down," She stopped talking, resorting to bouncing up and down as a method to vent all her kept in energy. "Why do you even need to ask? What happened to your visions?"

She made a face. "Well…I started to look into your future yesterday afternoon then Esme walked in and asked me what I was doing because I was glassy eyed for so long and I told her that I was spying on you two and then she got mad and threatened me and said it was rude so now I'm asking you questions that I need answers to because you're my brother and this is your first girlfriend." This sentence was said in one breath.

I blinked. "Okay, well, I'm glad that you didn't peek." I didn't know what else to say to that.

Alice stared at me, waiting. "Are you going to tell me or what?" she insisted after a few seconds.

"Um, sure. What do you want to know?" I asked awkwardly, sitting down on the couch. Alice took the loveseat and leaned in as if my responses were of dire importance.

"Did you kiss her?"

"Yes."

"Did she kiss you back?"

I sighed, remembering her attack. "The first time, yes, the second time…" I hesitated. "Well, the second time she fainted," I grinned and shook my head. "The poor girl forgot to breathe," I chuckled.

"Was it French?"

"NO!" I yelled, my eyes widening. How could she possibly think that? Firstly, it would be rude, and secondly, it would put her in dangerous proximity to my venom-coated teeth.

"Excuse me for asking," Alice said, pouting. "Anyway, did you spend the night?" she asked, immediately back to her excited self.

I sighed, settling into the couch, sure that this cross-examination would last an uncomfortably long time. "Edward!" I turned to the stairs, which Esme was zipping down. "Why are you back so soon? Was her father there?" she questioned, taking a seat next to me.

"Edward's back?" Jasper was immediately at his wife's side. "Are we interrogating him?"

"Yup," Alice chirped. "So, Edward, didyou spend the night in her room again?"

"Hold on, he stays in her room?" Jasper interrupted, his eyes bugging out of their sockets. "I thought he just lingers by the window."

"Nope, he sits in her rocking chair, staring at her." Why thank you, Alice. That certainly puts me in a good light.

"Or joins her in her bed," Esme was kind enough to add.

"What?!" Jasper, and Carlisle – who I realized had entered the room – exclaimed.

"You go in her bed?" Carlisle verified in awe. Okay, this was really not a conversation I wanted to be having with my family. If I had any blood left in my body, my blush would rival Bella's.

"Hold on, but I thought that she sleeps naked!" Jasper told me, looking horrified.

Um…_WHAT?_

"She doesn't sleep naked," I said through gritted teeth. "She wears sweats and a tee-shirt."

"No skimpy nightgown?"

"No," I growled.

"No short-shorts and a tank top?"

"No, Jasper! Where are you getting this from?" I demanded angrily.

"Emmett." Okay, Emmett was going to die when he got home. Die. I leaned back and pinched the bridge of my nose. The rest of my family wasn't bothering to stifle their laughter.

"If you don't mind," I said, standing up. "I'm going to be in my room."

Halfway to my bedroom, I heard the door open and Emmett's booming voice. "Hello everyone! Are we having a family meeting? Who got in trouble?" he asked in reference to the gathering in the living room. I shot downstairs, a murderous expression on my face. "Oh, hello Edward. You don't look very happy," he noted, his cheerfulness unwavering.

With a snarl, I tackled him, throwing punches as I pinned my brainless brother to the ground. "Whoa, what's up lil' bro?" he laughed, turning so that I was now on the bottom. I kicked him backwards and continued my punches.

"Sleeps naked, huh?" I growled, now pulling his wrists behind him.

"Oh, right. OW. Well it makes sense – ow!" I yanked his arms higher. "Why else would you want to watch her sleep?" Emmett twisted out of my grasp and knocked me to the ground.

"For your information, she is beautiful and peaceful to watch." I shot behind him and grabbed him in a headlock.

"Well, she can't be _that _peaceful. I mean, look at you!" My growls increased and I threw him into the stairs.

"You boys are going to break something!" Esme shrieked.

"Too late," Alice muttered, referring to the smashed banister behind Emmett.

"Go to your rooms until you can control yourselves!" she shouted, pointing upstairs. "And don't touch each other!" she added as we climbed the steps.

"Idiot," I muttered.

"Prude," Emmett shot back. I snarled at him. "What? It's true!" I slammed my door behind me.

I turned my jazz back on, pacing back and forth from my couch to my CD wall. Emmett had such a sick, twisted mind. My whole family did! Alice with the kissing questions, Jasper's clothing thing, ugh! It was enough to drive you crazy. I was going to have to keep Bella far away from them, make sure her innocent, unpolluted mind was a good distance from their corrupting influence.

Pacing was really not helping, plus Esme would be mad if I left a permanent dent in the floor, so I went to lie on my couch. Bella's sweet fragrance lingered in the cushions. I turned my head to the side and inhaled deeply. Ahh… I relaxed, all thoughts of anger towards my siblings gone.

How nice life would be, if I could have Bella by my side. If I stayed with her for years, decades, the bloodlust would eventually lessen, wouldn't it? Perhaps even to a point where I wasn't fighting myself to take her hand, caress her cheek, hold her in my arms. We could sit in hammocks, watch the sunset, go to the beach, just like normal couples. Of course, we would never truly be like normal couples, no, not even close, but I could try to give her as close of a typical life as possible.

But was would it be better for Bella to have a completely ordinary life? Where if she cut herself while chopping vegetables for a salad, got a paper cut, slipped and fell, her husband would be able to run for a bandage and take care of the wound without having to focus on not killing her? Probably. It was selfish to want to have such a wonderful girl for myself.

But I _was_ selfish enough to want her for myself. The thought of her being with someone like that vile Mike Newton made my fists tighten, my jaw clench. She deserved someone as caring, as intelligent, as warm as she was. Then again, I was in no way similar to her – I was a soulless monster, a cold murderer. How could I deserve an angel like her? I didn't. I deserved her just as much as Mike Newton did.

There was another part of selfishness though, that let me wonder about a future with her. The part of me that didn't want to go back to a dark, lonely existence. Bella had changed my world more than she could possibly be aware of. She was like the sun that I had never known existed, the fire in a habitually empty hearth. I didn't want to lose my sun, my fire, my angel. But this made me even less worthy.

A pounding on my door shook me out of my disconcerting musings. "Edward," Jasper called. "Carlisle sent me up here to tell you that you should pick up Bella soon. And as a side note, you should know that self-loathing was literally seeping out from under the door. Calm down, breathe, and go get your human," He hesitated before adding, "She makes you happy. As annoying as the smell is, I'm really glad that you found her."

I sighed. "Thank you, Jasper," I said, turning off my music before getting up and leaving the room. When I got out there, he was, of course, gone. "Emmett! I'm taking your Jeep!" I yelled as I went down the stairs.

"What?" he exclaimed in outrage, immediately beside me. "What do you mean you're taking my Jeep? What happened to your Volvo?"

"I have to pick up Bella. Is my car suitable for off-roading? No. Is yours? Yes. Besides, you owe me for the lies you shared with Jasper concerning Bella."

"Hey!" he objected with a frown. "Those weren't lies. Those were educated guesses," I rolled my eyes. "What? How was I supposed to know that she was 'beautiful and peaceful to watch'?"

"Emmett!" Esme's voice called from upstairs. "Let your brother use your car!"

"What?!" Emmett shouted in indignation.

"Those were rude things to say about his girlfriend," she admonished.

I grinned, grateful that she already approved of Bella enough to defend her. "Thanks, Mom!" I called, running to the garage.

Emmett's monstrous Jeep was definitely less preferable to my sleek Volvo, but there was no way I was taking my car off-roading. I shuddered to think of the condition the paint would've been in afterwards. Of course, any car we owned was preferable to Bella's ramshackle truck. The thing could barely reach sixty.

When I neared Bella's, I had to slow down considerably, as there was a police car in front of me. Much to my irritation, it stayed in front of me from the moment I noticed that it was there. It wasn't until I reached her street that I realized that it was her father, Chief Swan. I pulled over a few houses down, figuring that I probably shouldn't show up until after dinner. I was about to turn on the radio when my curiosity was piqued. Seeing her father's reaction to the announcement of our date – the word made me ridiculously happy – would be priceless. Besides, I told myself as I got out of the cab, I was already there. There was nothing else to do except wait, and what was the fun it that?

With my hood pulled up, I stepped into the shadows created by the numerous trees and made no sound as I darted to the kitchen window, so fast that if I was seen, I would be a blur, merely thought of as a trick of the rain.

Bella served her father some unidentifiable masses of food. This was evidently one of Charlie's favorites, as his face lit up when multiple pieces were put on his plate. _Fish fry… _He sighed internally. How could they eat that? I shuddered. Disgusting. Dinner was quiet, both of them immersed in their thoughts – at least Charlie was; I couldn't be sure about Bella – until he asked, "What did you do with yourself today?"

I found myself holding my breath as she answered, "Well, this afternoon I just hung out around the house…" Hold on, what? Was she not planning on telling him? I didn't exhale. "And this morning I was over at the Cullens'."

_What?! _Charlie dropped his fork. I tensed. This wasn't going too well. His mind was vacant of anything other than frazzled half-sentences. "Dr. Cullen's place?" Bella confirmed this. "What were you doing there?" he demanded. _Please don't say you're with one of the boys, please, please, please. _Charlie begged in his mind.

"Well, I sort of have a date with Edward Cullen tonight, and he wanted to introduce me to his parents…Dad?" she asked in alarm.

The moment he had heard my name, he froze. He imagined Bella going to open the front door, a huge grin on her face. In stepped…Emmett? What was Emmett doing at her house? Back in Charlie's mind, Emmett was wrapping his arm around her waist, pulling her to his side. My fingers dug into the ground as jealously kicked in. Mike Newton's fantasies were one thing. Seeing my own brother with Bella, even if it was only in her father's mind, was something else. My hands crushed a small stone in the ground into fine dust.

"Dad, are you all right?" Bella verified, her eyes widening.

"You are going out with Edward Cullen?" he demanded. Emmett's face flashed in Charlie's mind again, looking big and threatening. What was with the whole Emmett thing? My jaw clenched.

"I thought you liked the Cullens," Bella said, instantly backtracking.

"He's too old for you!" My lips pulled up in a smile as I realized that Charlie had a point there. I could've been her great-grandfather – quite an unsettling thought, really.

"We're both juniors," she corrected.

"Wait…" he paused, going through the boys in the Cullen family again. "Which one is Edwin?" I nearly laughed aloud at my new nickname. Alice had better not have seen this – I would be tormented by this one.

"_Edward,_" she stressed, "is the youngest, the one with the reddish brown hair." Her eyes glazed over for a brief moment.

_Oh…_ Realization dawned on Charlie as my face flashed in his mind. "Oh, well, that's…" _still completely horrible. _I nearly laughed aloud. "…better, I guess. I don't like the look of that big one. I'm sure he's a nice boy and all, but he looks too…mature for you," That was certainly one way of putting Emmett's disturbing mind. "Is this Edwin your boyfriend?"

"It's Edward, dad." She was obviously evading the question.

"Is he?" Charlie insisted.

"Sort of, I guess," Bella mumbled, a slight blush coming to her cheeks.

"You said last night that you weren't interested in any of the boys in town." Bella's eyes flashed down to note that her father was picking up his fork. Relief crossed her face.

"Well, Edward doesn't live in town, Dad," I grinned. Very clever. "And, anyways, it's kind of at an early stage, you know," she added. Maybe for her. I, on the other hand, already wanted her to spend the rest of her life with me. I was nearly as bad as those daydreaming teenage girls that wrote their name with their crushes last name tacked onto the end of it. Hmm… Bella Cullen. Isabella Cullen. Isabella Swan Cullen. Isabella Cullen Swan… "Don't embarrass me with all the boyfriend talk, okay?" Bella pleaded.

"When is he coming over?"

"He'll be here in a few minutes." I took that as my cue to get back to the Jeep. As eager as I was to hear the rest of the conversation, I also needed to make sure that I didn't have any dirt on my clothes. Not for vain reasons, of course, but I was sure that Bella wouldn't like the idea of my having listened in. If she asked straight out, I would tell her, but I hoped that she wouldn't.

Finding that I was dirt-free, I started the Jeep a minute later and drove down the street, and pulled up behind Bella's truck.

"Leave the dishes," Charlie told Bella, who was at the sink. "I can do them tonight. You baby me too much." I got out of the car and walked to the house at human speed, which was quite annoying, as the droplets of rain were falling harder than before. I rang the doorbell, thankful that the Swans had an awning.

Charlie opened the door. "Come on in, Edward," he invited. Bella sighed for an unknown reason. I reached out to her mind and, again, nothing.

"Thanks, Chief Swan." I have to admit, I was nervous. I'd never gone to my love interest's house to meet the parents. On the off chance that my mother and father had forced me to visit a young lady in my human days, I hadn't been anxious because, to be honest, I didn't like these girls in a way other than as a friend. There was no reason to impress anyone. Now, I was making my first impression on the father of the girl I wanted to marry eventually. Suddenly, Bella's bravery this morning was a lot more remarkable.

"Go ahead and call me Charlie," That was a good sign, right? "Here, I'll take your jacket."

"Thanks, sir." I took off my jacket and handed it to him. _Break my daughter's heart and I'll break every last bone in your body_he threatened angrily.Despite the fact that he couldn't break a single bone in my body if his life depended on it, this was still slightly terrifying.

"Have a seat there, Edward." I took a seat in an armchair, not really up to sitting next to Mr. I'll Break Every Last Bone in Your Body. Bella glared at me as she sat down by to her father. I winked at her. "So I hear you're getting my girl to watch baseball," Charlie said, as if daring me to say otherwise.

"Yes, sir, that's the plan." I must've missed that part of the conversation, which was too bad – I would've loved to see Charlie's expression when he heard that his clumsy daughter was going to play baseball.

"Well, more power to you, I guess." He laughed at his joke and I joined in reluctantly, not wanting to seem rude.

"Okay," Bella said, looking a bit irritated as she stood up. "Enough humor and my expense. Let's go." Gladly. I went after her as she walked into the hallway and put on her coat.

"Not too late, Bell," Charlie warned as I slipped into my jacket.

I decided that this was my cue to be the responsible boyfriend. "Don't worry, Charlie," I told him. "I'll have her home early."

"You take care of my girl, all right?" _I _do_ have a gun, you know_ Did he just threaten to shoot me? He just threatened to shoot me! I wasn't intended to hear, of course, but it was disconcerting all the same. Not the part about getting shot, only the fact that he wanted to shoot me. I could care less about getting shot – the bullet would just ricochet off of my rock hard skin. That would, though, pose some unwanted questions.

Note to self: Don't aggravate Charlie.

Bella groaned. "She'll be same with me, I promise, sir." Maybe the 'sir' part would make him less hostile.

Having had enough of her father's protectiveness, Bella stomped out, an adorable expression on her face. We both laughed, although our reasons for mirth were different. While I was admiring her pout, he was chuckling about her attitude, so similar to when she was little. An image of a child Bella flashed in his mind. She was stalking away from the water, completely soaked, wearing an expression similar to the one she had on now as she sat next to a pile of fishing equipment.

We followed her outside and I nearly bumped into her as she came to an abrupt halt at seeing the red Jeep parked at the side of the road. _Holy crap_, Charlie thought, letting out a whistle. "Wear your seat belts," he managed to say in his shock at the enormous vehicle that his daughter was walking over to.

I opened the door for her, partly as a reflex, partly to impress Charlie. Bella's eyes flickered from the ground to the seat and she crouched slightly, as if going to leap inside. I sighed, realizing that the wheels alone came up to her waist. I picked her up, only using one hand. Realizing my mistake too late, I listened to Charlie's mind to see if he had noticed. He didn't – he was still amazed at the size of the Jeep. While I went to the driver's side at a slow, human speed, Bella struggled with the buckles, her attempts to put the clasps together upside down comical.

"What's this?" she asked when I got in.

"It's an off-roading harness," I answered simply.

"Uh-oh," Bella muttered, her eyes widening and her face paling. She tried to fasten herself in again with as much success as before. With an exasperated sigh, I leaned over to help, keeping my hands a polite distance from her torso as I strapped her in.

At this point, Charlie had come out of his daze and was now watching us intently. _Why is he reaching over? _Her father pondered, trying to peer through the thick haze of rain. _WHAT IS HE DOING TO HER CHEST?! _Uh-oh. Please see the buckles, please see the buckles… I attempted to make the straps more visible. As strings of curses continued to shoot through his mind, I began panicking. I was considering sticking my head out the window and yelling to Charlie that I he didn't have to strangle me in order to avenge his daughter's virtue, as I wasn't actually _doing _anything, when Bella raised her hands to the clasps in an effort to help me. _Wait, what is she__…_ Charlie trailed off, seeing his daughter's hand raise. _Oh, those are just the seat belts. Figures – a car this big __has to__ have the proper safety equipment._ I relaxed considerably and did the last buckle, pausing to trace the line of Bella's collarbone. Her heart sped up dangerously and I pulled away, not wanting her to pass out on me. I was already on thin ice with her father and her blacking out wouldn't help anything.

I started the engine and backed out onto the street, grateful that we were leaving the region that Chief Swan was in, as he was beginning to fantasize about the numerous ways he would kill me if I _had_ been manhandling his precious, innocent Bella. Yes, it was definitely best not to anger Chief Swan.

**Author's Note: **I'm splitting this chapter into two parts because if I don't, it'll be 15 pages, which doesn't sound very happy-ful.

Also, I'm sorry. I told you that the chapters would be coming out faster, and they didn't. I actually don't like this one very much, so please, please, if you have any suggestions on making it better or want to point out OCC-ness of a character in a section, let me know in your review.


	7. Author's Note Sorry

Okay, I am super, super sorry that I don't have a chapter ready. I've been busy with finals, the SAT, a school play, the talent show etc etc etc. I know those aren't very good excuses, so here's another apology. I should have the next chapter up in a week or so, but until then, here's an (annoying I know) author's note letting you know that I haven't died.

twilightguitargirl


	8. Chapter 17 in Twilight Part Two

**Author's Note: **What do you know! A chapter! Finally!

**Disclaimer:** I don't own anything. Not Edward, not the baseball game, nothing.

"This is a…um…_big _Jeep you have," Bella noted as we drove away from her house.

I smiled. "It's Emmett's. I didn't think you'd want to run the whole way." Not to mention that it would look pretty odd if I arrived to pick her up and didn't have a vehicle.

"Where do you keep this thing?" she asked, fingering the bottom of the window.

"We remodeled one of the outbuildings into a garage." Well, Esme had been the one actually doing the remodeling. Whenever one of us tried to help, we would do something wrong within the first few minutes and get kicked out.

"Aren't you going to put on your seat belt?" Bella asked suddenly. I looked at her incredulously. Did she seriously think that I needed a thin piece of fabric to protect me, a practically indestructible creature, if we got in an accident? "Run the _whole _way?" she then exclaimed, a light bulb seeming to go off in her head. "As in, we're still going to run part of the way?" She sounded a bit hysterical.

"You're not going to run," I clarified.

"_I'm _going to be sick."

"Keep your eyes closed, you'll be fine." I probably should've prepared her better last time—she seemed to have been traumatized. Then again, how was I supposed to know how she was going to react? It wasn't as if I normally carried humans on my back as I ran at breakneck speeds. Bella leaned back in her seat and bit her lip, panic clear on her face. I leaned over to place a reassuring kiss on the top of her head and made the mistake of inhaling.

Her fragrance was similar to when she came out of the shower last night—the sweetness of it enhanced. The bloodlust was more potent now because the strawberry scent of her shampoo wasn't as fresh, the smell of her blood exponentially stronger than it. The rainwater saturated her dark brown locks, raising the force of the wave I was hit by. I groaned.

Bella looked up at me in confusion as I pulled away. "You smell so good in the rain," I explained, wanting to open a window to clear my mind, but knowing that that would be rude. Instead, I stopped breathing until the fog in my head had lifted.

"In a good way, or in a bad way?" she wanted to know.

"Both, always both," I sighed.

When we got onto the bumpier part of the drive, I realized how necessary the seatbelts holding Bella down were. Even with them, she bounced around, holding onto the side of the door for stability. Not that it helped—I politely kept my gaze away from her chest. I was unable to keep the grin off my face, her expression hilarious. At first, she tried to say something, but the up and down movements stopped her. Her cheeks turned a beautiful shade of pink and I pressed my lips together to stifle my laughter.

"Sorry, Bella, we have to go on foot from here," I said once we reached the end of the road and I had turned off the Jeep.

"You know what? I'll just wait here." Her heart thumped against her ribcage noisily.

"What happened to all your courage? You were extraordinary this morning." Riding on my back should be much less terrifying than meeting my vampire family. Of course, this ride was going to end at previously said family. Was that the reason of her anxiety?

"I haven't forgotten the last time yet," she told me. Ah, it couldn't really have been that terrible—running was exhilarating. I went to her side of the car and began undoing the straps. Now that I didn't have a protective father watching my every move, I could unbuckle her quickly.

"I'll get those, you go on ahead," she offered, her heartbeat louder than I thought possible for someone so small.

"Hmmm…" I wondered aloud, the pounding in her chest giving me an idea. Dazzling her, as she called it. "It seems I'm going to have to tamper with your memory." I lifted her from the cab, not trusting her to jump down without injuring herself, and set her on the ground.

"Tamper with my memory?" Bella verified, looking at me warily.

"Something like that." I placed both hands on either side of her head and stepped closer, trapping her between myself and the side of the vehicle. "Now," I said quietly, my lips just a few inches from hers. "What exactly are you worrying about?"

"Well, um, hitting a tree." She swallowed before continuing. "And dying." Dying? She was more worried about dying while on my back, my venom-coated teeth a safe—well, not really _safe. _Safe would be thousands of miles away_—_distance from her, than when I kissed her. Hm. "And then getting sick." Her eyes had already glazed over. I did my best not to smile.

I ducked my head to lightly kiss the bottom of her throat. "Are you still worried?" I asked in a whisper against her warm skin. I hoped I was doing this right. "Yes," she gasped. "About hitting trees and getting sick." That was slightly better—she seemed to have forgotten about dying.

My nose skimmed up her neck to the bottom of her chin. "And now?"

"Trees," she reminded me breathlessly. "Motion sickness." Maybe I should be kissing her more. She was holding up remarkably well. Most girls would have fainted by now. I lifted my face to measure her expression. It was a strange mix of someone being tortured and in heaven. I bit back a chuckle as I moved to kiss her closed eyes.

"You don't really think I would hit a tree, do you?" Well, there _was_ that time in my first year of being a vampire. When Carlisle opened the door to go outside, I had smelled a wounded hunter, causing me to bolt from the house. Consumed by thirst and being new to the whole running faster than imaginable thing, I crashed into a pine tree. Actually, it was three pines, as one measly tree hadn't slowed me down. But that was a story for another time…

"No, but _I _might." I really hoped that she was going to give up soon. My human instincts were starting to take over and the urge to press my lips against hers instead of dancing around her face like this was growing. I let my kisses drift over her cheekbones and down to the corner of her jawbone, letting them stop at the edge of her full bottom lip.

"Would I let a tree hurt you?" I asked as she quivered.

"No," she whispered dreamily, breathlessly. A shiver went down my own spine as her lips trembled when I gave in to the human side of myself and placed my lips very gently on hers.

"You see," I murmured, in a daze myself. "There's nothing to be afraid of, is there?"

"No," she sighed with an air of surrender, saturating my skin with her fragrance. This was my cue, I was told by a little voice in the back of my head. My cue to really kiss her. So I listened to it and held her face in my hands and pulled it closer to mine.

Maybe I listened to that little voice more than I should have, taking its advice before thinking it through. Because Bella's reaction surely wouldn't have been a strong as it was if I had been more careful. She wrapped her arms around my neck in a hold that would have been tight for a human, pressing her body against mine, sighing into my mouth.

Unlike the first time, two sides of me roared—the vampire side and the human side. Neither sides wanted things that I _should_ want. It took all my strength to pull away from her warm lips, to get a safe—again with that word, which should really never be used when referring to me at all—distance from her blood-filled veins and gorgeous figure.

"Damn it, Bella!" I gasped, hands on my knees, breathing the woody air in deeply to clear my head. "You'll be the death of me, I swear you will."

"You're indestructible," she muttered angrily, in a similar position as me.

"I might have believed that before I met _you. _Now let's get out of here before I do something really stupid." Such as drain your blood or French kiss you. But really, both idiotic decisions would end up the same way—with her dead. I slung her onto my back and she tightened her arms and legs around me, which didn't exactly help the haze that my mind was in.

"Don't forget to close your eyes," I told her gruffly, still furious with myself. She ducked her head under her arm, pressing it against my shoulder blade and I took off.

I let my frustration increase my speed, the trees flying past. The wind whipped Bella's long hair around, a few strands snapping against the back of my neck. How could I have been so irresponsible? So careless? Was I really so selfish that I would jeopardize her safety for a _kiss_? Ugh. I disgusted myself.

After running for a few minutes, I heard Emmett's and Carlisle's thoughts, both so much louder than anyone else's—Emmett because he completely lacked the will to guard them from me and Carlisle because of the familiarity of his voice. I stopped a few yards away from the edge of the clearing instead of rushing in. Having the chance to apologize to Bella for my behavior would make me feel marginally less guilty—I didn't want Jasper questioning the reason I was full of such self-loathing.

"It's over, Bella," I told her softly. She released her hold on my neck and waist, sliding onto the wet ground with a _thump_.

"Oh!" she gasped. I whirled around in surprise and amusement. Bella's wide eyes looked up at me in mystification, as if not fully understanding what just happened. The disorientation clear on her face pushed me into a roar of mirth, my cross mood suddenly lifted. Irritated, she stood up and wiped the dirt and leaves off of her bottom, the pout adorning her lips increasing the volume of my laughs. Esme and Emmett's thoughts snapped towards the forest where Bella and I were, no doubt startled by the sudden burst of noise.

With a huff, Bella stalked back in the direction that the Jeep was. What was she doing? There was absolutely no way she was going to be able to find the route back. "Where are you going, Bella?" I asked, snagging her waist.

"To watch a baseball game. You don't seem to be interested in playing anymore, but I'm sure the others will have fun without you," she said crossly.

"You're going the wrong way," I corrected, smiling. She turned around sharply and stomped in the other direction, still not heading towards the clearing. I caught her wrist before she got herself lost.

"Don't be mad, I couldn't help myself," I said. "You should have seen you face." A chuckle rose in my throat, managing to get out before I could control it.

"Oh, you're the only one who's allowed to get mad?" she asked, raising her eyebrows challengingly.

"I wasn't mad at you," I protested, not completely understanding what she was saying.

"'Bella, you'll be the death of me'?" she repeated bitterly.

"_That _was simply a statement of fact."

She tried to pull away from my hand, a frown on her face, but I kept my grip on her. "You were mad," she persisted.

"Yes." At myself, sure. Sometimes I detested myself.

"But you just said—" she began in confusion, but I cut her off.

"That I wasn't mad at _you_," I finished, finally realizing what she was getting at. "Can't you see that, Bella? Don't you understand?"

"See what?" she asked, the bafflement on her face heartbreaking. Did she truly believe that I could ever be upset with her?

"I'm never angry with you—how could I be? Brave, trusting…warm as you are," I attempted to explain this to her, but if the puzzlement on her face was any indication, I didn't do a very good job.

"Then why?" she wanted to know. I cradled her face in my palms, looking into her eyes, trying to make her comprehend.

"I infuriate myself," I said softly. "The way I can't seem to keep from putting you in danger. My very existence puts you at risk," I ranted. "Sometimes I truly hate myself. I should be stronger, I should be able too—"

Bella placed her warm fingers over my mouth, stopping me. "Don't," she said gently.

I pulled her hand away from my lips, holding it against my cheek, letting the warmth soothe my frustration. "I love you," I murmured. "It's a poor excuse for what I'm doing, but it's still true. Now, please try to behave yourself," I warned, leaning down to place my lips on her, being careful to use the least amount of pressure possible. With Jasper so close by, there was absolutely _no way_ I was going to let him feel what I felt when I kissed Bella.

She was motionless until she sighed. "You promised Chief Swan that you would have me home early, remember?" she murmured against my lips. "We'd better get going."

I pulled away reluctantly. "Yes, ma'am," I said, taking her hand and leading her into the meadow. Bella paused for a moment, eyes widening at the sheer immensity of the open space in front of her. _There they are! _Esme rejoiced, walking towards us with Emmett on her tail, who was eager to meet the girl whose bedroom I stayed in every night. _There they are… _Rosalie thought acidly, striding off in the opposite direction. I held back an exasperated sigh, hoping that she wouldn't act like this for the entire game—Bella was entirely too sensitive about Rose's surly attitude.

"Was that you we heard, Edward?" Esme asked in surprise.

"It sounded like a bear choking," Emmett added, amused.

"That was him," Bella confirmed, smiling at Esme, who was delighted by this small gesture. Emmett burst into internal laughter, remembering the sound a bear made on his last hunting trip and comparing it to me.

"Bella was being unintentionally funny." I smiled, remembering the disoriented look on her face.

_Edward and Bella! _Alice squealed, bolting towards us. "It's time," she announced and, sure enough, a peal of thunder could be heard in the distance.

"Eerie, isn't it?" Emmett asked, winking playfully at Bella. I grinned, pleased at my brother's easy acceptance.

"Let's go," Alice encouraged, grabbing Emmett's much larger hand and running to the field.

Before sprinting off after them, I asked Bella, "Are you ready for some ball?"

"Go team!" she exclaimed, the slight awkwardness to her cheer showing how few games she went to back in Phoenix. I chuckled, reaching over to ruffle her windswept hair. A brief spark of electricity came with the casual contact, and I found myself wanting to carry her along with me as I ran off to the field.

We quickly separated into teams: Emmett, Rosalie and Jasper versus Carlisle, Alice and I. Waiting in the left field while Emmett and Jasper debated over who would get to bat first, I listened in on Esme and Bella's conversation as they made their way over at human pace.

"Do they like to cheat, then?" Bella was asking shyly.

"Oh yes—you should hear the arguments they get into!" Esme said and I grinned, remembering how Emmett's competitive nature, Rosalie's stubborn attitude, and Jasper's tendency to fuel angry emotions often sparked heated disputes. "Actually, I hope you don't, you would think they were raised by a pack of wolves," she joked, trying to make Bella feel more comfortable.

It evidently worked, as Bella laughed. "You sound like my mom," she noted with a smile.

Esme chuckled. "Well, I do think of them as my children in most ways. I never could get over my mothering instincts—did Edward tell you I lost a child?" Uh oh—I was in trouble.

"No," Bella said in shock, her eyes widening.

"Yes, my first and only baby," she sighed sadly, thinking back to the few and hazy memories that she had of her son—a thin fuzz of hair covering his large head, out of proportion to the rest of his body, and big shining eyes with a glowing, toothless smile beaming up at her in delight. I smiled at the image. "He died just a few days after he was born, the poor tiny thing. It broke my heart—that's why I jumped off the cliff, you know." Busted. I found myself holding my breath as I waited for Bella's response.

"Edward just said you f-fell," she said, stuttering in her surprise.

"Always the gentleman," Esme commented. Hold on, lying—or stretching the truth slightly, I guess you could say—made me a gentleman? In what decade did that happen? "Edward was the first of my sons," Esme continued. "I've always thought of him that way, even though he's older than I, in one way at least." She smiled warmly at Bella. "That's why I'm so happy that he's found you dear." _We had been wondering about his orientation…_ she commented mentally. I sighed. That was one conversation I could definitely have lived without having. "He's been the odd man out for far too long; it's hurt me to see him alone," Esme said sadly. Well, my refusal to think of Tanya, Kate and Irina in a way other than as friends worked out remarkably well, didn't it? I got to meet Bella.

"You don't mind, then?" Bella questioned with her head adorably cocked to the side, pausing before clarifying. "That I'm…all wrong for him?" I scowled slightly at that comment—_I ­_was the one all wrong for Bella, not the other way around.

"No, you're what he wants," Esme insisted, trying to think of a way to word her quick approval. "It will work out, somehow." I hoped that Esme was right. Being with Bella was practically impossible. It would be better for her if I left now, but I didn't think I could possibly tear myself away. My lugubrious mood didn't last for long though, as Esme next called out, "All right, batter up."

I darted into Alice's mind, trying to see how hard she was planning to pitch. Emmett was obviously going to hit the ball as hard as he could without breaking the bat to smithereens, but Alice's tactics changed all the time. I attempted to ignore the pictures of Jasper that she was hurling at me, but after a few moments of particularly vivid and unwanted images, I gave up and withdrew.

Alice stood straight, holding the baseball at her waist like usual, waiting for a random moment to flash her hand forward. Not ready for the throw, Emmett missed the ball the first time, and Jasper caught it with a smack, then threw the ball back to his wife. She flashed Emmett a smile before tossing the ball his way again. This time, he was prepared for it, snapping the bat around in time to connect with the leather covered sphere. I glanced at the curve that the ball made in the air before shooting into the forest to the spot I knew it would fly to. I'll admit that I tried harder than usual to do my best, eager to impress Bella with my baseball catching skills. I darted past the trees, stopping as the ball fell into my raised hand. Perfect catch.

I eagerly returned to the clearing, grinning widely with the ball held high. "Out!" Esme shouted. Bella stared at me in wide-eyed incredulity. Jasper snickered at the smugness rolling off of me as I returned to the diamond.

Noticing that I was playing with an unusual amount of enthusiasm, my family began chuckling, all of them lightheartedly teasing me about it at some time or another. After catching the ball for the third time—which was pretty good, if I do say so myself, as it ricocheted off a tree as it came down—I ran over to Bella, beaming. "What do you think?" I asked with a grin.

"One thing's for sure," she answered with a smile. "I'll never be able to sit through dull old Major League Baseball again."

I laughed, picturing her in the stands with a cheering Charlie. "And it sounds like you did so much of that before," I teased.

"I am a little disappointed," she told me.

I frowned. Was I not as good a player as the rest of my family? What with my vampire speed and all, did she expect me to be better? "Why?" I asked, worried.

"Well, it would be nice if I could find just one thing you didn't do better than everyone else on the planet," she answered, her tone light. I smiled in relief and heard her heart pause before starting up again, faster. I would have to figure out what caused that reaction sometime.

_Edward, I'm sure you're having fun with Bella, but it's your turn. _Alice reminded me. "I'm up," I told Bella, excitedly hurrying to the home plate.

As the game progressed, I found myself having more fun than usual with Bella there with me, cheering everyone on. Our altercations left me feeling a bit more childish than normally, as they were over relatively trivial things like whether or not someone had gotten to the plate before the catcher received the ball, but they were also shorter than usual. Looking into my family's minds, I found that I wasn't the only one wanting to make a good impression on Bella. This, of course, left out Rosalie, who disliked her enough not to care if she fought in front of her.

Because of how much I was enjoying the baseball game, I forgot about the threat of human drinking vampires coming into Bella's vicinity. That is, until I saw Alice's vision.

_Three figures sprint through the forest: two dark haired males and one female, her thick orange hair streaming behind her as she runs. Suddenly, a crash echoes through the air, different from the thunder that sounded just moments before. The man with black hair pauses, listening intently and the other two stop twenty yards in front of him._

"_Laurent?" the brunette questions._

"_Baseball," Laurent answers. "Must be a big coven if they have enough players for baseball."_

"_And I'm going to assume that you want to join them," the redhead says, her burgundy eyes narrowing. Laurent nods. She groans._

"_Victoria," Laurent sighs. "Let's go visit. It would be nice to meet some others. And we should make sure that we don't hunt in their range. Remember what happened last time?" He frowns, reminiscing._

"_That's true," the brunette muses. "Alright, let's go stop by," he says decidedly_

"_James—" Victoria begins to protest, then stops with a sigh. "Fine." James presses his lips to her forehead quickly and they continue running, heading in the direction of the noise …_

Oh no.

I dashed to Bella's side from my position as catcher, dread sinking in me as Esme asked worriedly, "Alice?"

"I didn't see—I couldn't tell," she murmured, stricken. Jasper was the first to come to her side and the others grouped around her as well. I moved closer to Bella, my stance already defensive.

"What is it, Alice?" Carlisle asked, already guessing, but not wanting to believe.

"They were travelling much quicker than I thought. I can see I had the perspective wrong before." She thought back to her vision, dissecting it for any stray information.

"What changed?" Jasper asked as he stepped nearer to his wife, picking up on my protectiveness.

"They heard us playing, and it changed their path." _I should've seen this sooner!_ She internally lamented. We all glanced at Bella's anxious face and away.

"How soon?" Carlisle asked me. I frowned, stretching my mind to find a vampire besides my family. Our kind's voices were always different, more complex, thinking multiple things at the same time, and as these vampires were red-eyed, one section of their thoughts would be focused on human blood and the burning that its absence caused them. I hoped that I wouldn't find a mind like this, prayed that they would be too far away for me to hear them, but to my despair, I found that they were not five minutes away, and coming quickly.

"Less than five minutes," I answered with a scowl. "They're running—they want to play."

_Maybe you can leave with Bella before they get here. _Carlisle thought directly at me. "Can you make it?" he asked out loud, glancing at her apprehensively.

"No." I frowned in frustration. "Not carrying—" Even _I_ wouldn't be able to do that. "Besides, the last thing we need is for them to catch the scent and start hunting." A shudder went down my spine at the thought.

"How many?" Emmett asked.

"Three," Alice responded in a bleak voice.

"Three!" He rolled his eyes. _What's up with everyone being so upset? _"Let them come." Emmett clenched his fists and the muscles in his arms tensed menacingly.

Everyone's eyes were on Carlisle as he mulled over the situation. I found myself holding my breath as I waited. "Let's just continue the game," Carlisle decided. "Alice said that they were simply curious."

I wanted to scream in my frustration. Was that all we were going to do? Bella's future was balanced on the tip of a knife, dependant on a group of unknown vampires, and all we were going to do was play baseball?

"Edward"Esme's quick whisper snapped me out of my thoughts. "Are they thirsty?"she asked hesitantly.I thought back to Alice's vision and the claret eyes that I saw in it. I shook my head infinitesimally and her shoulders relaxed.

"You catch, Esme," I told her. "I'll call now." There was absolutely no way I was going to be more than a yard away from Bella now. I stood protectively in front of her. By now, the others had taken their places on the field, their eyes scanning over the forest uneasily now and then.

"Take your hair down," I said, remembering how she would let her tresses fan out in front of her face during the first few weeks of our Biology classes.

She took out the rubber band holding it in a ponytail and shook her hair out around her. I flinched slightly at the perfume that hit me. "The others are coming now," she verified.

"Yes," I replied, arranging her dark brown locks so that they partially covered her face. "Stay very still, keep quiet, and don't move from my side, please." I hoped that the wind wouldn't start blowing through the clearing, spreading her scent like wildfire.

"That won't help," Alice told me gently. "I could smell her across the field."

"I know," I replied, feeling a bit hysterical.

"What did Esme ask you?" Bella murmured, surprising me. How did she catch that? How much of our other conversation did she hear? I had figured that in our panic, we were talking much too quickly for her human ears to hear, but I could very easily have been wrong. On that note, what other sort of things had she observed that I didn't realize she was able to notice? Was the reason she was so uneasy around Rosalie that she was aware of the amount of enmity held against her? Had I done anything or said anything that she wasn't supposed to know about?

"Whether they were thirsty," I responded hesitantly, still stunned.

They played for the next few minutes, but it was clear that no one was putting much effort into it. Jasper was looking out at the forest warily and Esme was watching Bella with concern in her eyes. Rosalie was staring at Bella too, but unlike Esme's warm, thoughtful eyes, hers were cold, hard topaz, angry and glaring. Her thoughts were swarming with infuriation—at Emmett for suggesting baseball today, the nomads for hearing us, Bella for existing, and the family for worrying so much about her.

But I didn't have time to care about Rosalie and her poisonous antagonism. The three vampires were close enough for me to hear their thoughts clearly, much too close for my comfort. "I'm sorry, Bella," I told her, drowning in remorse and self-hatred. "It was stupid, irresponsible, to expose you like this. I'm so sorry." I would've continued apologizing, but my breath caught in my throat as I realized that they had come close enough to stop running. I stepped to the side, facing the soft rustling that now came from the forest. Everyone turned to face the sound, some inhaling sharply, others not inhaling at all, but all—even Rosalie—freezing in anticipation.

What had I done?

**Author's Note: **Wowie! The chapter is done! does little dance C'mon press the little purple/blue button and tell me how happy you are that I finally got it out or how annoyed you are with me for not posting sooner. Either way, review!


	9. Chapter 18 in Twilight

**Author's Note: **OVER 100 REVIEWS!!!! AHHHHH!!!!!!! AND THE CROWD GOES WILD!!!! Thank you everyone!! Cookies for all! tosses out chocolate chip/sugar/M&M/peanut butter/oatmeal raisin/snickerdoodle/etc cookies And look! I got it out in less than a month! Well…one day less than a month, but hey, we're getting somewhere!

Speaking of getting things out in sort of less than a month, would you guys prefer for me to do whole Twilight chapters—or half chapters if they're really, really long—and update once a month OR do you want smaller chapters and updates two or maybe even three times a month? Or do you not care? That works too, just let me know.

Also—I know this author's note is long, sorry—if anyone wants to tell me what a beta is, that'd be great. sheepish grin

**Disclaimer: **I don't own Edward or Bella or Alice or James or Laurent or Victoria or Emmett or Carlisle or Jasper or Rosalie or Esme or even Bella's truck. But I do own _a _truck. Well, my parents do. Only it's blue, not red. But it's loud! But doesn't have a bulbous cab… So I might as well give up now. sniffle sniffle

I was drowning in self-hatred as the three figures from Alice's vision stepped into the meadow. I'd put my Bella in danger, even after I swore to myself that I would do everything to keep her safe. Feeling the disgust I had for myself, Jasper snapped at me in his thoughts, probably out of reflex. His full attention, like everyone else's, was on the vampires as they walked towards us in a group.

Laurent was the most comfortable around us, grinning at Carlisle, Emmett and Jasper in greeting. Victoria was substantially less eager to be around so many vampires. At least, she thought we were vampires; our strange, golden irises made her even more uneasy. Her restless eyes flickered from face to face. I froze when her gaze found Bella, but Victoria quickly moved on. I was suddenly grateful for how pale and beautiful she was; my blocking her from view just barely camouflaged the fact that she was human. James, on the other hand, made me the most anxious. Though his burgundy eyes weren't flashing from person to person like the woman to his left, they took in everyone as a whole, noting small things like how Alice's gaze was constantly shifting to Jasper, the way Carlisle gave off an air of authority, and how protectively I stood over Bella. I flinched.

I glanced over at Bella to see her response to our visitors. Her deep brown eyes were wide, taking in the vampires' appearances with more curiosity than fright. One corner of my lips twitched down in disapproval. To be honest, I'd been hoping that she'd be a bit more scared about the fact that three very dangerous, very bloodthirsty creatures were standing not twenty yards away from her.

"We thought we heard a game," Laurent announced in a casual tone, bringing my attention back to them. "I'm Laurent, these are Victoria and James." He gestured behind him.

"I'm Carlisle," he introduced. "This is my family, Emmett and Jasper, Rosalie, Esme and Alice, Edward and Bella." I tensed, hearing Bella's name and automatically shifted closer to her.

Overwhelmed by the waves of anxiety being thrown at him from multiple directions, Jasper began spreading ease through the meadow, being gradual so not to startle the visitors.

"Do you have room for a few more players?" Laurent inquired with a hint of hope in his tone.

"Actually, we were just finishing up. But we'd certainly be interested another time. Are you planning to stay in the area for long?" Carlisle asked amiably._I hope they aren't,_Rosalie commented bitterly. _Everyone is absurdly worried about that Swan girl._

"We're headed north, in fact, but we were curious to see who was in the neighborhood." I _wasn't,_Victoria corrected, a bit annoyed. _But of course Laurent was and here we are._ "We haven't run into any company in a long time."

"No, this region is usually empty except for us and the occasional visitor, like yourself." _Thank goodness_ Carlisle thought. _I don't think __Edward would be able to stand any level of traffic__ now that Bella's in the picture._ I had to agree with that; this level of stress probably wasn't very healthy. Of course, Jasper's calm had done a pretty good job of subtly spreading through everyone and the mood was more relaxed than it had been a minute ago.

"What's your hunting range?" Laurent asked out of courtesy. When you encountered a group of vampires, it was common etiquette to make sure that you weren't encroaching on their territory. It was also a precaution; too many people disappearing made humans antsy.

"The Olympic Range here, up and down the Coast Ranges on occasion." _Mmm, __cougars__… _Jasper thought longingly. His gaze flicked to Bella and away. I shot him a glare and he glanced at me guiltily. _Sorry._ I shrugged it off; there were more important thirsts to worry about right now. "We keep a permanent residence nearby. There's another permanent settlement like ours up near Denali," Carlisle continued.

_Permanent? _All three vampires' thoughts echoed surprise at the word. "Permanent?" Laurent verified, leaning back slightly in surprise. "How do you manage that?" _Are the Volturi aware of this?_ The name caught my attention; less civilized vampires weren't normally aware of the, so called, royal family in Italy.

"Why don't you come back to our home with us and we can talk comfortably?" Carlisle offered. James and Victoria looked at each other incredulously. From their thoughts, I gathered that we were the only vampires that they had heard of calling their residence a 'home.'

"That sounds very interesting, and welcome," Laurent said with a smile. "We've been on the hunt all the way down from Ontario, and we haven't had the chance to clean up in a while." He noted our family's obviously designer apparel despite the spots of dirt on Carlisle, Emmett, Jasper and my clothes—the girls were careful to stay out of the mud—and wondered what our home was like.

"Please don't take offense, but we'd appreciate it if you'd refrain from hunting in this immediate area. We have to stay inconspicuous, you understand." _Inconspicuous? _Laurent thought. _Isn't it a bit hard to be inconspicuous when you have a group of eight in such a small town? _I relaxed marginally at hearing that he counted Bella as a vampire.

"Of course," he said aloud. "We certainly won't encroach on your territory. We just ate outside of Seattle, anyway." He laughed and the other two smiled, all three of them recalling the taste. Jasper fidgeted. I looked anxiously in Bella's direction. To my astonishment, she didn't look the slightest bit disturbed at the casual reminder of the true nature of the depraved creatures surrounding her.

"We'll show you the way if you'd like to run with us," Carlisle invited. "Emmett and Alice, you can go with Edward and Bella to get the Jeep."

Freedom. Release. Safety. Relief filled me and I was about to sweep my love into my arms and run off with her when a slight, unpredictable gust of wind blew in our visitors' direction.

Taking Bella's scent with it.

I froze as James registered the fragrance, preparing to attack on instinct. I crouched defensively in front of Bella as he shifted to the ground, preparing to spring forward. I snarled ferociously, letting my anger carry forward. Behind me, Bella's heart picked up, only intensifying the situation. Alice silently gushed horrified apologies, insisting that she had no idea. Esme was terrified, already having accepted Bella as a new daughter. Jasper was trying to pacify our rampant emotions to no avail. _I knew it,_Rosalie hissed. _This is her first day with our family and she's already__ creating__ problems._

James's thoughts carried another tone. The only way to describe it would be coldblooded. The way he deemed killing as no more than another part of the game could be considered nothing else. As plans swarmed in his mind of ways to slip through our defenses, to get Bella alone, to drain her sweet blood from her veins, one phrase repeated in his mind. _What__ fun…_

"What's this?" Laurent exclaimed in shock, startled by the sudden hostility. James moved to the right, trying to get a better view of what I was protecting. Through his mind, I myself lip curled above glistening teeth, eyebrows pulled low over blazing eyes, crouched low to the ground. I also saw Bella behind me, ashen faced, doe eyes wide, perfectly still, radiating terror in every direction. I shifted in response, letting out a low growl.

"She's with us," Carlisle said, his voice hard, concealing the tenor of dread that his thoughts conveyed.

Laurent stared in our direction, realizing in a sudden burst why Bella was so frightened, why I was shielding her, why James was suddenly so interested in the seemingly ordinary figure behind me. "You brought a snack?" he questioned in awe. He took a step forward automatically, thirst flaring slightly as a breeze carried Bella's aroma toward him. I growled again, my lip pulling higher from my teeth, an excess of venom pooling in my throat as my body tensed to attack.

"I said she's with us," Carlisle repeated firmly.

"But she's _human_," Laurent objected. _Do they keep pets? _he wondered. My jaw hardened disgustedly at the concept.

"Yes," Emmett spoke up, glaring at James menacingly until he slowly straightened from his crouch. His crimson eyes were trained on Bella, observing that the blood was gradually returning to her heart shaped face. I didn't move out of my defensive stance, aware that James was far from done with Bella.

"It appears we have a lot to learn about each other," Laurent noted, his voice gentle to make up for the antagonism shown by his coven member.

"Indeed," Carlisle agreed.

"But we'd like to accept you invitation." _Their house must be permeated with the smell of humans. _His eyes darted to Bella and away as he wondered how many more we kept. A low growl rumbled in my chest. "And, of course, we will not harm the human girl. We won't hunt in your range, as I said."

James shot Laurent an incredulous look. _Has he forgotten that _I _am the leader of this coven?_ This didn't stop his plotting though. Far from it. Laurent was simply another part of his game; a component that made it all that much more exciting. James looked to Victoria for reassurance that she would stay with him. She nodded almost imperceptibly; if I hadn't heard her thoughts, I wouldn't have noticed it.

Carlisle studied Laurent's candid face for a moment before responding. "We'll show you the way. Jasper, Rosalie, Esme?" The three drifted into a group, effectively hiding Bella from view. Alice zipped to our side and Emmett slowly joined us, keeping his ominous topaz eyes locked with James's ardent garnet ones.

"Let's go, Bella," I told her, eager to get far, far away from James and his coven. Bella didn't move. She was completely frozen, eyes huge in fear, lips parted as her jaw slacked. I had to pull at her elbow to get her moving, and even then, she stumbled along beside me, my hand the only thing leading her.

James's eyes were trained on us as we walked to the forest, watching Bella closely. Seeing his intent gaze, Carlisle began leading his group in the opposite direction. "Right this way," he said, even though the shortest way to our house was actually further to the right. I swung Bella onto my back and ran.

All my worry and anger and frustration and hate poured out of me as I sped through the woods, faster than I ever had with Bella on my back. A small part of me was worried that the speed might be too much for her, but that section was quickly overridden by the frantic need to get her out of here. Out of the forest, out of the city, out of the state, out of the country even. I would strap Bella into a damn spaceship if it meant that she was safe. _Wait for us__, Edward, _Emmett called, straining to catch up. _They aren't following us, _Alice assured me. _You can slow down._ I sped up.

Finally, I saw the small clearing where I had parked the Jeep. I stuck Bella in the back seat and got into the front in the same second. "Strap her in," I told Emmett, who had just arrived, as I started the car. He slid the buckles in place quickly. Once Alice closed her door, I pressed the gas pedal to the ground and veered backwards, spinning around to face the road and tearing down it.

As I sped down the twisting road oaths spilled out of my clenched teeth that would get me smacked on the back of the head if Esme was here. I cursed myself, James, baseball, the wind, myself again. _Edward, _Alice soothed. _You need to calm down. _My only response was to growl. Hurt, she turned to stare out the window into the gloom, scanning the future.

_James and Victoria broke away from the__ main __group, _she informed me after a few long moments. _Jasper will notice in __thirty seconds_ My teeth ground together. It was only to be expected, but hearing it sent a terrified shiver down my spine. I pushed the Jeep faster.

Once we reached the main road, Emmett verified, _Hoquiam? _Our old home was still there, as a sort of emergency residence. Like the houses in Chicago, Ashland and Rochester, it was empty, giving us the option to return any time. I nodded tersely in affirmationHe gazed out the window silently.

"Where are we going?" Bella asked abruptly. Alice and Emmett were silent, not wanting to say something that I would be mad at them for, and I didn't speak either, knowing that my answer would invoke protest. "Dammit, Edward! Where are you taking me?" she demanded with more anger this time.

"We have to get you away from here—far away—now," I answered bleakly, keeping my eyes on the road ahead of me.

"Turn around!" she shouted, her fervor startling me as she tore at the seatbelts holding her down as if about to jump out of the Jeep. "You have to take me home!"

"Emmett." He hesitated before taking Bella's wrists in his hands carefully. _Oh God, she's so delicate,_ he thought anxiously, not quite sure how hard to be gripping her. I growled a low warning. _I'm being careful_, he reassured me.

"No! Edward! You can't do this!" Bella shrieked.

The hysteria in her voice broke my heart, but I kept driving. If anything happened to her, my heart would do more that crack; it would be shattered, trampled, destroyed. "I have to, Bella, now please be quiet," I snapped, unintentionally harsh._Edward, _Alice said warningly.

"I won't!" she objected in alarm. "You have to take me back—Charlie will call the FBI! They'll be all over your family—Carlisle and Esme! They'll have to leave, to hide forever!" The selflessness of this girl was incredible. Here she was, being tracked by a fervent vampire, and she was afraid for _my _family. No, not just afraid, she was frantic, throwing a huge fit over our safety when she should be terrified for her own. What could _possibly_ be running through her head right now?

"Calm down, Bella," I said. "We've been there before." It was all part of being a vampire nowadays: forging birth certificates, covering our tracks if someone got suspicious about our true nature, lying constantly, dealing with the aftermath of a slip up. Bella going missing for a while was nothing compared to the legal crises we'd been through before.

_Edward, _Alice reprimanded. _Be nice_

"Not over me, you don't! You're ruining everything over me!" Bella tried to pull away from Emmett's grasp, but he held her fast, looking terrified as he tightened his grip on her arms.

"Edward, pull over," Alice ordered. She had to be kidding. I glared at her before accelerating in spite. "Edward's let's just talk this through."

There _was _nothing to talk through! We were leaving Forks and that was it! "You don't understand!" I yelled in aggravation at their ignorance to the imminent danger. "He's a tracker, Alice, did you _see _that? He's a tracker!" Emmett silently cursed.

"Pull over, Edward," Alice repeated more forcefully. The Jeep rushed down the road at one hundred and twenty miles an hour. _He is so absurdly stubborn. _"Do it, Edward."

"Listen to me, Alice," I said, trying to make her understand how terribly important this was. "Tracking is his passion, his obsession—and he wants her, Alice—_her _specifically. He begins the hunt tonight." Panic leaked into my voice despite my effort to hide it.

"He doesn't know where—" she started, but I cut her off angrily.

"How long do you think it will take him to cross her scent in town? His plan was already set before the words were out of Laurent's mouth."

Bella gasped in horror. "Charlie! You can't leave him there! You can't leave him!" She threw herself at the harness in a futile effort to break out of it.

"She's right," Alice told me. _James i__s going to go to her house first. __Nearly__ all her tracks lead there.__ We have to make sure that her father is protected._ That was true; Bella would only blame herself if anything happened to Charlie. My foot eased off of the gas. "Let's just look at our options for a minute," she urged. There was only one option—to get to Hoquiam as fast as possible. Why couldn't they see that? _Pull over__ right now_Alice demanded. _We__ a__re _not_ leaving Forks without consulting Carlisle. _Carlisle. How could I have disregarded him? His opinion was the most important, and I hadn't even found out what it was. I pulled my foot away from the accelerator reluctantly, then slammed down on the brakes, turning to Alice once we screeched to a halt.

"There are no options," I growled.

"I'm not leaving Charlie!" Bella hollered stubbornly. My jaw clenched.

"We have to take her back," Emmett chimed in.

"No," I refused vehemently despite the fact that it was now three against one.

"He's no match for us, Edward. he won't be able to touch her," he insisted.

"He'll wait," I shot back. I suddenly wished that I could somehow share my gift with the others in the car, show them how unrelenting and warped James's mind was. Then they would understand how dire the situation was.

Emmett smiled grimly. "I can wait, too."

"You didn't see—you don't understand." I ground my teeth together in frustration. "Once he commits to a hunt, he's unshakeable. We'd have to kill him."

The idea didn't settle with me. I had spent the last couple months making an incredible effort _not_ to be a murderer, to control myself enough to save the beautiful angel sitting behind me. But now the situation was twisted. If we destroyed James, Bella, who I had gone to an enormous trouble to keep on this Earth, would live. If we didn't, Bella would—it hurt to even consider this—die. Either way, a life was taken, inadvertently or not.

But if one person was existing rather than living, in a sort of half-life, would that make you a half-killer? Or, what if that person was a killer as well? Did that make a difference? On that note, who had the right to decide which individual deserved to live more? If I was asked, the choice would be impossibly easy. But I didn't have that liberty. So what was I doing playing with God's plans?

These ethical enigmas and many, many more had plagued my mind for countless years, particularly during my period of rebellion, and I still hadn't figured a single one out.

"That's an option," Emmett mused, considerably less troubled than I was by the moral aspect of the situation.

"And the female. She's with him," I told them. "If it turns into a fight, the leader will go with them, too." More lives lost.

"There are enough of us." My arguments were slowly being worn down and I could feel it. The desperation and irritation was building up.

"There's another option," Alice murmured. _Just __hear me out_she pleaded, rushing over her words in an effort to get them all out. _You could just turn her__That would make tracking her pointless. __We both know that i__t's going to happen sooner or later, so why not__—_

I whipped around to glare at her, my temper flaring dangerously. How could she _possibly _even suggest that? That was probably the worst idea I'd ever heard! Changing Bella into the very bloodthirsty creature that was stalking her, taking away an angel's shot at heaven, only to freeze her in limbo forever. Such a concept was unbelievable, absurd, irrational, horrible in every way imaginable! "There—is—no—other—option!" I snarled in rage, interrupting her before she could suggest it to the other occupants of the Jeep.

Emmett and Bella stared at me in disbelief and confusion, not understanding why I was reacting so strongly to a seemingly innocent statement. _Take it easy, Edward. _Emmett told me. _We all understand that Bella means a lot to you and Alice is just trying to help._ I ignored him.

_Why are you being so pigheaded? If you really think about it, it's the most practical solution._ I glared at her as she persisted, silently fuming.

"Does anyone want to hear my idea?" Bella offered tentatively.

"No," I growled automatically. _That's it. _Alice glowered at me. _Be quiet. __You are __acting__absolutely rude_

"Listen," she begged. "You take me back."

"No."

Now she glared at me in annoyance. Even Emmett was aggravated with me. "You take me back," she continued. "I tell my dad I want to go home to Phoenix. I pack my bags. We wait till this tracker is watching, and then we run. He'll follow us and leave Charlie alone. Charlie won't call the FBI on your family. Then you can take me any damned place you want."

I stared at her exasperated face in surprise. That was a good plan. Infinitely better than Alice's, and as much as I hated to admit it, even better than mine. My siblings were equally shocked, Emmett more so because he still thought of Bella as a simple human that I'd taken an unusual interest in. "It's not a bad idea, really," he said, astonished by this show of intelligence.

"It might work—and we can't simply leave her father unprotected," Alice added. "You know that."

They turned to me for my response. "It's too dangerous," I protested. "I don't want him within a hundred miles of her."

"Edward, he's not getting through us," Emmett said, completely sure of this.

Alice scanned through James's future. There were only still pictures, almost all of them foggy because of the amount of decisions being made and discarded at the moment. One of the rare clear ones showed Emmett carrying Bella from the Jeep with Alice and I behind them, all of us blurred because of our speed. Esme was in the doorway of an unrecognizable house a few yards away, looking worried. James was scowling in the forest near the vehicle, half-turned as if about to run off. "I don't see him attacking," Alice said. "He'll try to wait for us to leave her alone."

"It won't take long for him to realize that's not going to happen," I pointed out half heartedly as the realization that I was losing set in.

"I _demand _that you take me home," Bella ordered in a remarkably compelling voice.

I pressed my fingertips against my temples and closed my eyes to rearrange my thoughts. I could feel myself caving in. My arguments were being rebutted without fail and Bella's idea was quite genius. I knew that the rest of the family would probably agree with Alice and Emmett—other than Rosalie, who disliked Bella to the point that her death wouldn't grieve her at all.

"Please," my love implored in a whisper, shaking my very core. In that instant, I would do whatever she was pleading for, give her whatever she wanted no matter the cost. Then another moment passed and I snapped out of this strange sensation, telling myself that what Bella wanted would put her in danger—in danger! But she sounded so heartbroken, another side of me lamented and I knew that if I permitted myself a glance at her beseeching face, I would lose it.

Think this through, the rational part of me commanded and I exhaled in a quiet gust. Bella's arrangement could work if it was done right. She would have to leave immediately, not get caught up by a Charlie who wouldn't want her to leave. It shouldn't be hard to get plane tickets on short notice; we could even rent a private jet if we had to. Hmm…that might work. If we got a plane, we could discuss this further without worrying about the tracker finding us. Vampires could do a lot of things, but they couldn't fly.

"You're leaving tonight, whether the tracker sees or not," I said reluctantly without lifting my head from my hands to look at Bella's expression. "You tell Charlie that you can't stand another minute in Forks. Tell him whatever story works. Pack the first things your hands touch, and then get in your truck. I don't care what he says to you. You have fifteen minutes. Do you hear me? Fifteen minutes from the time you cross the doorstep." The Jeep growled as turned it in the direction of Bella's house. _Thank you,_Alice told me. I nodded curtly in acknowledgement.

"Emmett?" Bella asked.

"Oh, sorry," he said, letting go of her wrists immediately. _How does Edward do it? _Emmett wondered incredulously. I glanced at him questioningly in the rear view mirror. _Her pulse,_he admitted embarrassedly. Of course. I was instantly contrite for putting him in such an awkward position.

"Sorry," I murmured, too quiet for human ears. _It's fine. _He shrugged it off, looking out the window as the trees whizzed by.

A few minutes later, after I'd thought through all the ways the tracker could possibly get to Bella while she was in the house with Charlie, I spoke. "This is how it's going to happen," I told them. "When we get to the house, if the tracker is not there, I will walk her to the door." What I didn't say was that if James was anywhere near her house, I would ignore their complaints and drive away as fast as the Jeep would take me. "Then she has fifteen minutes." I gave Bella a firm glance in the rearview mirror to emphasize the importance of this. She looked away. "Emmett, you take the outside of the house. Alice, you get the truck." They nodded without complaint. "I'll be inside as long as she is. After she's out, you two can take the Jeep home and tell Carlisle."

Emmett protested immediately. "No way. I'm with you," he insisted. Of course.

"Think it through, Emmett. I don't know how long I'll be gone." Rosalie would be mad—really mad. To her, it was bad enough that Emmett actually liked Bella. If he went with us to protect her, his wife would be furious.

"Until we know how far this is going to go, I'm with you." _I'll just follow you, _he promised with an adamant frown.

I sighed in exasperation and continued as if he hadn't spoken. "If the tracker _is _there, we keep driving."

As I spoke, Alice scanned through the next hour. "We're going to make it there before him," she said surely, seeing James running in the forest while we drove up to the Swan house. "What are we going to do with the Jeep?"

I frowned. I thought we had already established that her and Emmett weren't coming with Bella and I. "You're driving it home," I reminded her.

"No, I'm not," she answered. _I'm coming with you._ I couldn't believe this was happening, that my siblings were being so inflexible.

"Alice, you can't come with us. If we all go, it will be more likely that the tracker finds us!" I snapped angrily. Well, I didn't actually tell her that; a few curse words and extra impolite phrases were added that I wouldn't have said if I was speaking slow enough for Bella to understand me. Emmett, who could hear what I snarled at Alice, frowned. _I know you're upset__ but w__hat are you doing taking your stress out on Alice?_ he asked reproachingly. My only response was to growl. I knew I was being uncouth and if I had been in any other circumstance, I would've been ashamed of myself.

"We can't all fit in my truck," Bella murmured. In my aggravation, I simply ignored her. "I think you should let me go alone," she whispered, even quieter, assuming I couldn't hear her, evidently. I clearly hadn't stressed how enhanced vampire senses were; I could hear her heartbeat from a foot away.

A heartbeat that would very likely stop if I made the dire mistake of leaving her alone. "Bella, please just do this my way, just this once," I pleaded through teeth that were clenched tightly shut. Why would she even _wan__t_ to go by herself? Was she finally afraid of me and this was her way of showing it? If so, this was really a most inopportune time to want to be left alone.

"Listen, Charlie's not an imbecile," she argued. "If you're not in town tomorrow, he's going to get suspicious."

Of course, having Charlie safe from the tracker wasn't enough. Oh no. He also had to be assured that his daughter wasn't running off to elope with me. Only Bella would worry about something like that when she was being pursued by a bloodthirsty vampire. "That's irrelevant," I protested. "We'll make sure he's safe and that's all that matters."

"Then what about this tracker?" she shot back. "He saw the way you acted tonight. He's going to think you're with me, wherever you are."

Emmett was staring at Bella in outright surprise. "Edward, listen to her," he told me. "I think she's right." _My God, she'__s smart. If he does change her like Alice says he will, she'll be a great sister to plot with. _I didn't know whether to be happy that Emmett was accepting Bella, or mad that he expected me to turn her.

"Yes, she is," Alice concurred.

"I can't do that." I wouldn't.

"Emmett should stay too," Bella advised. "He definitely got an eyeful of Emmett."

"What?" he exclaimed, whipping around to face her in indignation.

"You'll get a better crack at him if you stay," Alice reminded him.

I turned to stare at her in disbelief. "You think I should let her go alone?" She, of all people, should know that leaving Bella unaccompanied would be practically asking the tracker to find her.

"Of course not," she scoffed. "Jasper and I will take her."

"I can't do that," I repeated futilely. Carlisle would approve of this plan. But Jasper being around Bella for so long would be hard on him. It would be useless to ask Rosalie to go. Maybe Carlisle or Esme could accompany Alice.

"Hang out here for a week—" Bella planned. My eyes widened and I stared at her incredulously in the rear view mirror. A whole week? Absolutely not! "A few days," she corrected. "Let Charlie see you haven't kidnapped me, and lead this James on a wild-goose chase. Make sure he's completely off my trail. Then come and meet me. Take a roundabout route, of course, and then Jasper and Alice can go home."

She had thought through almost everything it seemed. As I began considering it, Alice had a vision. _Her and Bella in the back of a dark car, Bella's head resting on Alice's shoulder, her eyes closed. The trees are a such a thorough blur in the window that it's obvious that a vampire is driving._ I exhaled quietly in defeat. Alice smiled. _Having Bella around will be good for you, Edward,_ she teased._ You're too stubborn sometimes._

"Meet you where?" I asked, giving in.

"Phoenix."

"No. He'll hear that's where you're going." I was a bit surprised she hadn't thought of that in her meticulous scheming.

"And you'll make it look like that's a ruse, obviously. He'll know that we'll know he's listening. He'll never believe I'm actually going where I say I am going."

Emmett laughed softly in appreciation. "She's diabolical."

As diabolical as it was, giving James even the slightest suggestion of her location made me uncomfortable. What if instead of falling for the ruse, he guessed that we were trying to trick him by going exactly where we said we were? "And if that doesn't work?" I asked.

"There are several million people in Phoenix," she told me.

"It's not that hard to find a phone book," I reminded her. They would just have to leave again.

"I won't go home."

"Oh?"

"I'm quite old enough to get my own place."

"Edward, we'll be with her," Alice reminded me.

"What are _you _going to do in _Phoenix_?" If the tracker hadn't figured out where they were already, news reports of two people sparkling in the sun like diamonds as they walked down the street would make it as obvious as if we called him up and gave him the address.

"Stay indoors." _What else?_

"I kind of like it," Emmett said slowly. He was picturing himself cornering James, tracking the tracker, how terrified James would be when he flexed his muscles menacingly…

"Shut up, Emmett," I snapped, annoyed at his fantasizing.

"Look, if we try to take him down while she's around, there's a better chance that someone will get hurt—she'll get hurt, or you will, trying to protect her. Now, if we get him alone…" He trailed off with a satisfied smile as his fantasy reached its climax scene.

I tuned out in irritation and stared out the front window. We were going much too slowly for my liking. I wanted to get to Bella's house as fast as possible so that she could leave as soon as possible, but one of the inhabitants of Forks seeing a huge Jeep speeding along a 40 mph road at twice that speed would cause unnecessary trouble.

At the same time, though, I wanted to stop the car and scoop Bella into my arms. I wanted to shower her beautiful, heart shaped face with kisses, drown in her dark eyes, stroke her soft brown hair, feel her warm lips against mine. I didn't want to leave her. I needed more time.

"Bella," I murmured. Alice and Emmett looked out the windows, giving us as much privacy as was possible in a car. "If you let anything happen to yourself—anything at all—I'm holding you personally responsible. Do you understand that?"

She swallowed. "Yes."

"Can Jasper handle this?" I asked, turning to Alice.

"Give him some credit, Edward," she said, automatically defensive. "He's been doing very, very well, all things considered."

"Can _you _handle this?" I verified.

Alice's lip rolled back as she bared her teeth and let out a throaty snarl. _I'm offended, Edward. I'm not going to eat my to-be sister, _she sniffed and I smiled apologetically. _But_she continued,_ you wouldn't even have to worry about it if you accepted the fact that someday she's going to be a vampire.__ Maybe I'll just turn her myself; I'll be wi__th her for three days, you know, _she said jokingly.

I knew Alice was only teasing, but that reminded me that Alice would have a chance to talk to Bella about vampirism. Jasper, who would do anything to please his wife, wouldn't stop her and I would be over a thousand miles away. "But keep your opinions to yourself," I warned. The last thing I needed was to go to Phoenix and find Bella under the illusion that being a vampire wasn't really all that bad.

_I make no promises, _she said with a smirk that had me glancing at her anxiously ever so often for the rest of the ride.

**Author's Note: **That was SO insanely hard and fun to write. Mostly hard, though. Edward's mind reading capabilities makes everything so much more difficult. The whole, "But keep your opinions to yourself," thing had me smashing my head against the wall, so if you have any ideas of how I can make it better, PLEASE let me know in your review. Which you're going to write right now. I'm sure of it. Alice just told me. grin


	10. Chapter 19 in Twilight Part One

**Author's Note: **I'm so sorry! I know, I haven't updated in over a month wince First, all my Twilight books went circulating around my friends, which meant I didn't have Twilight to look at for dialogue. Then, this dump truck load of social studies homework fell on me and I was buried up to my eyeballs in outlines that took me nearly 5 days to finish. And then it was finals week and I was studying like crazy. And after that, I had no more excuses. So, I'm sorry.

As for shorter or longer chapters, I've decided that I'm going to do shorter ones. Otherwise, you'd be waiting forever.

This chapter is dedicated to my friend, Ren, whose hamster just died tear

I tensed as I slowly drove the Jeep down Bella's street, the tires softly crunching against stray pebbles on the pavement. Bella's breathing was the only sound to be heard in the cab. We listened intently for footsteps in the forest, the crackling of dry leaves, and peered into the shadows. I opened the window a fraction of an inch and tried to catch the scent of a vampire other than one of my siblings'. Even Alice, who was confident that James wouldn't be here, was alternating between searching the area carefully and scanning through the future. I cut the annoying hum of the engine to hear better, trying to locate James's mind, brushing past an anxious Charlie and the tired neighbors and a man four blocks down out with his dog. Finding nothing, I announced, "He's not here. Let's go."

To say the least, I was surprised to see Emmett lean over to help Bella out of the harness. "Don't worry, Bella," he said as he unbuckled her. "We'll take care of things here," he assured her warmly. Noticing my questioning gaze in the rear-view mirror, he responded, _I like her. She's gonna be a great sister. _As if somehow guessing Emmett's thoughts, tears sprang into Bella's eyes and she stared at him with sadness, happiness, and another undecipherable emotion in her eyes. After blinking, a drop of salty water rolled down her cheek.

_Shouldn't she be home by now? _Charlie worried from the living room. _I _knew_ I should have bought her a cell phone!_

"Alice, Emmett." They slipped out of the Jeep quietly, Emmett heading to the back of the house to patrol the forest there. Before leaving to guard Bella's truck, Alice confidently assured me, _This will work. _Most of the time, Alice was right. There was the occasional wrestling match or staring contest that she misread, but these were few and far between. Her track record was filled with countless well-predicted football games, spoiling Emmett's fun, and storms loud enough for baseball. I hoped that this would be one of those times.

I got out of the Jeep and opened Bella's door, listening intently for the tracker's mind. After stretching my limits and not able to locate it, I pulled Bella out and held her tightly, nervously to my side. My mind was screaming at me to grab her and run back to the Jeep, then drive away as fast as the car could carry us. I hurried towards the house, my eyes darting from shadow to shadow anxiously.

"Fifteen minutes," I reminded her quietly and urgently when we reached the porch.

"I can do this." Bella sniffled determinedly, her jaw set and eyes shining. She stepped onto the 

porch and took my face between her warm palms, face nearly level with mine. "I love you," she whispered fervently, brown orbs boring into me. "I will always love you, no matter what happens now."

I stared back intensely, my chest constricting. "Nothing is going to happen to you, Bella," I promised. It couldn't—I wouldn't let it, even if it killed me trying.

"Just follow the plan, okay? Keep Charlie safe for me. He's not going to like me very much after this, and I want to have the chance to apologize later." A slight crease formed in her brow and I saw that leaving Charlie like this was going to be painful for her. But her statements were worrying me more than was comfortable. She was considering the possibility of death far too seriously for my liking.

"Get inside, Bella," I urged. "We have to hurry." Charlie was getting restless. _If anything has happened to her, the first thing I do will be buy her a cell phone. After dismantling that Cullen boy, of course. _

"One more thing," she murmured fervently, leaning in closer so that our noses were a few small inches apart. My breath caught in anticipation and I moved closer. "Don't listen to another word I say tonight!" And startling me more than I thought was possible, she pushed herself up and pressed her warm, soft lips to mine with an overwhelming amount of force. I reveled in the feeling while it lasted, then it was over and she whirled around to kick the door open.

"Go away, Edward!" she screeched at me, eyes brimming with tears, before slamming the door in my face.

I stared at the door, blinking in confusion. "Bella?" Charlie called anxiously, hurrying over from where he was pacing in the living room. _Oh no, _he lamented. _The doorstep. God, don't let him have tried something on the doorstep. _But I barely registered the words. I was preoccupied with Bella's angry exclamation.

Go away? Had she finally come to her senses during the kiss? Realized that she wanted—needed—someone other than a cold, hard monster? But then I remembered her other words: _"Don't listen to another word I say tonight!" _I nearly laughed in relief as I heard her scream, "Leave me alone, Charlie!" and stomp past him, tears streaming down her cheeks. This was all a part of her plan to get Charlie to let her go. And I had said she wasn't a good actress. Through Charlie's frazzled mind, I saw her stumble up the stairs, running with unsteady feet into her room. He hurried after her, only to have the door slammed and a soft thump sound from inside. "Bella, are you okay?" he demanded, voice rising hysterically. "What's going on?"

_My God, Edward, what did you do to her? _Emmett asked me, startled by the sudden noise coming from the house. Alice must've seen this, because she wasn't surprised at all. _Go! _Go!she was screaming at me, aggravated. _What are you doing standing around uselessly? GO HELP HER PACK!_

Pack. Right. After briefly sweeping the area for any people likely to be startled if I suddenly disappeared from where I was on the doorstep, I scaled the side of the house and slipped 

through Bella's window. A ratty black duffel bag was on the floor next to her, its only contents so far being an old grey stuffed sock. Oh, for the love of God, did she not realize that a vampire was chasing after at _this very second_? Exasperated, I opened one of her drawers and immediately shut it. Of course, I _had _to open the one filled with her underclothes. I tried the next one and was relieved to see a variety of harmless shirts and pants. I gathered a clump of jeans in my arms.

"I'm going _home_," Bella screamed and as her voice broke, a knife twisted into my un-beating heart. I froze at the unfamiliar sensation.

Charlie inhaled sharply. "Did he hurt you?" _It was the doorstep. I knew it. Dammit, I should've showed him my gun._

"No!" she screeched, the jarring sound rousing me from my startled stupor. Bella turned, flinching slightly in surprise when she saw me, but recovering quickly. I proceeded to toss clothes to her, opening the next drawer once the first one was vacant. _Hurry up, Edward! _Alice urged.

"Did he break up with you?" _Rich, stuck-up— _I attempted to block out the series of expletives that followed. The second drawer was nearly empty and the bag was getting full. I opened the last drawer and, not looking at what I was handling, threw the fabric—because that's all it was, fabric—in her direction.

"No!" Bella shouted, her voice going hoarse. She swallowed, wetting her dry throat. It was so easy being a human in that way. To dampen their parched, rough throats, all they had to do was swallow. So much easier than having to take a life, however far less satisfying. I shook my head forcefully; thinking about things like that was intolerable when Bella was so close by. I watched her as she blindly continued to pack the duffel to its breaking point.

"What happened, Bella?" Charlie asked desperately, panicking as he banged on the door futilely. I silently thanked Bella for locking the door behind her. _Maybe Renée was right, _Charlie mused despondently, leaning against the door._ Maybe I'm not prepared to take care of my teenage daughter._

"_I _broke up with _him_!" She punctuated the words with a yank on the zipper of her bulging bag. The metal teeth snagged a piece of light blue fabric, unrelenting as they gripped the threads, as if trying to prevent her from leaving. I moved her fumbling fingers out of the way and zipped the bag.

"I'll be in the truck," I murmured, setting the bag on her shoulder. It dug into her shirt and she gripped the strap to support its weight. I hoped that it wouldn't slow her down, or worse, tip her off balance on her way down the stairs. "Go!" I whispered urgently before turning and slipping out the window, closing it smoothly behind me. _About time_, Alice murmured anxiously as I dropped to the grass and headed to the truck. _It doesn't really take that long to pack, does it_?

"She's only human," I murmured absently, climbing into the passenger seat and listening 

intently as Bella shoved past a bewildered and quickly growing angry Charlie. Through his mind, I saw her wobble down the stairs, the duffel definitely hindering her ability to stay upright. I had put more clothes in there than I realized.

"What happened?" Charlie called, hurrying after her as she ran through the kitchen. _Why is she carrying a duffel bag? It looks as if she brought her entire wardrobe! She's not really leaving, is she? _"I thought you liked him." He managed to snag her elbow, pulling her to face him. I watched her face shift as she looked up at her father: her eyes were determined, a sad, almost pained crease formed in her forehead and tears filled her wide eyes. She swallowed.

"I _do_ like him—that's the problem!" Bella declared. "I can't do this anymore! I can't put down any more roots here! I don't want to end up trapped in this stupid, boring town like Mom!" Charlie flinched at the mention of his ex-wife and his brows furrowed. _Renée_. "I'm not going to make the same dumb mistake she did. I hate it—I can't stay here another minute!" she burst out and salty water flowed freely down her cheeks as she tore her arm away from Charlie's limp fingers. Frozen, he reminisced painfully, the memories also playing before my eyes.

"_Renee! Wait! We can work this out!" a much younger Charlie calls. His curly hair grows further forward on his brow and the strands of grey are gone. The worry lines are absent, other than the angry wrinkles between his eyebrows. He hurries after Renée, who, on the other hand, doesn't seem to have changed much, if Bella's photograph is anything to go by. She lugs an overflowing suitcase towards the door with each hand and has a baby Bella cradled against her chest in a snuggly._

"_No we can't! I'm tired of this stupid town and tired of you!" she yells back, setting down one of her bags to fling open the door._

_Charlie catches her arm and tries to pull her back. "What about Bella?" he pleads. "She needs her father." _

_Renée yanks her wrist away with a hiss, grabbing the handle of her suitcase again. "We'll be fine on our own," she huffs, stomping out. "Just let me go, Charlie…"_

Charlie shook himself from these reminiscences, arguing weakly, "Bella, you can't leave now. It's nighttime."

"I'll sleep in the truck if I get tired," Bella replied, her voice thick with tears as she walked down the front hall.

_Emmett and I are going now_, Alice told me sliding out of the front seat. I nodded to her and she darted to the Jeep, where Emmett was already waiting. He gunned the engine as Alice closed her door and they drove backwards around the corner, out of sight.

"Just wait another week," Charlie was begging as he followed Bella to the front door. "Renée will be back by then." _And hopefully you will have changed your mind._

This seemed to affect Bella more than anything else her father had said. "What?" she asked, pausing and turning to look at Charlie in shock. I swore softly as a vision of Bella staying in Forks 

flickered in Alice's mind, but to my relief it quickly disappeared.

"She called while you were out," Charlie gushed. _If I had known this would stop her, I would have told her sooner. _"Things aren't going so well in Florida, and if Phil doesn't get signed by the end of the week, they're going back to Arizona. The assistant coach of the Sidewinders said they might have a spot for another shortstop." My fingers contracted into a fist. Hurry up, Bella…

She shook her head roughly, as if trying to shake any doubt out of it. "I have a key," she murmured, turning the doorknob. _I can't let her go. Not like I did with Renée. Oh God, Renée would be furious if she found out that I let Bella leave on her own. _Charlie reached towards her. "Just let me go, Charlie," Bella snapped suddenly. I frowned in confusion, hearing the words from Charlie's memory being repeated. "It didn't work out, okay? I really, really _hate _Forks!" And with those words thrown at her hurt father, she threw the door open and ran out of the house, leaving Charlie standing motionless at the doorstep.

His mind was spinning, barely registering the fact that Bella was running to her truck frantically, and I realized the purpose of Bella's words—to incapacitate her father. I withdrew from his mind, feeling invasive and disrespectful and swept the area again as Bella tossed her bag into the back of the truck and climbed in.

…_hope David will reply to my email…_

…_Earnshaw, may you not rest, as long as I am living…_

…_quadratic formula? Ugh, I hate__ math…_

…_yes, once I get my hands on that delicious human…_

I froze, petrified, as I heard the familiar voice of the tracker ringing in my head. He was little over a mile away, and approaching quickly. Panicking, I entered Alice's mind, trying to see if she had seen anything change. She hadn't.

Then, suddenly, she had. "I'll call you tomorrow!" Bella shouted out her window, loud enough for James to hear. _Ahh…there she is_… he rejoiced, speeding up. Horror-struck, I watched images flash before my sister's eyes and my own. James following us. James and Victoria grinning triumphantly. Bella, eyes wide, mouth opened in preparation to scream. My eyes darted to Bella as she revved the engine and drove onto the street, tears creating glistening paths on her pale cheeks.

And so the hunt began.

**Author's Note: **Review!


	11. Author's Note Hiatus

Wonderful Readers:

Edward in the Meadow is now on hiatus. Right now, I don't know if this is permanent or temporary, but don't be expecting updates any time soon. Super sorry everyone. I've been busy with homework and another writing project, but I've also simply lost interest in this fic. --wince--

Thank you for your guys' support. A carton of Ben and Jerry's to the everyone who reviewed.

Lots of Love - TWILIGHTGUITARGIRL


	12. I'm back!

Look! I'm alive! I know, it's a miracle, right? And, even more miraculously, I have a new fanfiction published. It's basically an edited version of this one. I reread it a while ago and was rather horrified. My writing has gotten much better over the past year and a bit, I promise. So, check out Edward in the Meadow: Version 2!

--twilightguitargirl


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